Debbie Ridpath Ohi: A Social Media Master Class for Authors & Illustrators

Debbie Ohi shares some of her best tips on social media for both authors and illustrators. Here are a few of my favorites (Debbie would type 'favourites' as she is delightfully Canadian):

For best results, you do want to learn some basic photography skills whether you are an illustrator or an author. Take photos of all of your events, yes. But for authors, you can also get the people who work on your book involved in your social media, too, and drum up visual content from those sources. Authors can take photos of their work environment and tools for writing. Authors, your illustrators would love to be showcased and credited in your social media posts! When appropriate, tag your publisher, editor, art director or agent, too.

Debbie's books! Easy to learn more about on her website

Debbie doesn't believe social media results in direct sales, it's about getting people talking. Change your focus from sales to connection, let us hammer you over the head with this:

Social media is for CONNECTIONS not SALES.

Love Debbie's Found Object Art series
which you can see on Instagram

Figure out which social media platforms you enjoy being on the most, and which audiences those appeal to (educators and librarians often are on Twitter, art directors love Instagram). From their figure out how to connect with those audiences and get to know them better, and how you can serve them and their needs.

Debbie stresses your work comes first! There is no one right way to do social media, and it is not the most important thing in your career. Try to make both outcome and time goals for your social media so you have a manageable schedule and provide quality content or interactions that make it worth taking your time away from your writing or art.


 Follow Debbie to see more best practices!
https://twitter.com/inkyelbows
https://www.facebook.com/DebbieOhi/
https://www.instagram.com/inkygirl/

Meet #LA17SCBWI’s Team Blog

Meet 2017's SCBWI Team Blog!

We'll be live blogging the 46th annual SCBWI Summer Conference from July 7-10th, 2017 here at http://scbwiconference.blogspot.com, and on social media using the hashtag #LA17SCBWI

Follow and RT:

• Lee Wind: @leewind
• Sona Charaipotra @sona_c
• Jolie Stekly @cuppajolie
• Susie Ghahremani @boygirlparty
• Jaime Temairik @jaimetem

Tomorrow is the final day to register at https://www.scbwi.org/events/46th-annual-summer-conference-in-los-angeles-la17/#event-registration 

Follow along and join the conversation:

#LA17SCBWI on Twitter
#LA17SCBWI on Instagram
#LA17SCBWI on Facebook
http://scbwiconference.blogspot.com

Martha Brockenbrough: Jumpstart Your Social Media... Ten Best Tips

@mbrockenbrough is Martha's
Twitter handle. Magnum Blackbeard
is her CB radio handle.

Author Martha Brockenbrough shares some fantastic and salient social media marketing gems. Spoiler alert: It's all about relationships!

Your strategy for social media, says Martha, is not to be on there to sell books, it's to build relationships. It is not about the technology/particular media platform, either, that is totally secondary to the connections you make on whatever platform you are comfortable being in or on.

You wouldn't start an in-real-life friendship by telling someone to buy your book, that's not how you should approach social media either. It's fine to make people aware that you write or illustrate, but Martha's hope is that you instead focus your efforts on being friendly, interacting online, and adding something to the conversations.

Give them reasons to interact with you: you can show snippets of your life, your family, vacations, things that inspire you.

Who are you building these social media relationships with? Five-year-olds don't tweet, but booksellers, librarians, teachers and parents do! All of these people are potential gatekeepers to your intended audience of your published book.

If you aren't published? Well, your fellow industry professionals, fellow authors and illustrators and agents and editors are on social media, and you can start building these relationships now and support authors and illustrators you are fans of and herald their work.

Martha's Core Principles for Online Social Media (and Martha can do an 8-minute plank, so she knows about core strength)

1. Be Positive
2. Focus on the long term
3. Build an authentic community (Martha admits it is difficult to be careful and professional while also being authentic, but hold both of these things in mind when you do broadcast yourself/opinions online)

Martha provides some platform-tailored tips and hints for how to interact on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and more, for both your personal and professional pages.

One Facebook hint: Images are often more popular than text-only posts for views and shares, consider making a quote from your book or a new, glowing review you want to share as word art or an image. Or consider using pictures to promote your event, like one of Martha's most popular booktour event info posts was this one:

See some great social media in action by using Martha as a case study:

Martha's website

Martha's blog

Martha's Twitter

Martha's Facebook

Martha's Instagram

Martha can also help you help your online self!

We're So Trendy! SCBWI trended on Twitter

So for artistic tweeting types, our conference was the No. 1 trending subject on Twitter today...

Until Shaun Tan spoke. No one's bigger!

A Taste Not A Transcript: Blogging Advice In Latin

Thanks, Matthew!

Follow the Winter Conference Tweets

We're glad you're reading the Winter Conference blog!

You can also following the action on Twitter:

#NY11SCBWI

Debutante Sighting: Kiersten White

Isn't it a great thing to meet a Twitter buddy in real life for the first time? These conferences are full of such moments--and it's especially exciting when that Twitter pal is weeks away from the debut of her novel.


I'll recreate the moment of my first meeting with Kiersten White, author of PARANORMALCY*.

Me: OMG! You look exactly like the girl on the cover of your book. Did they pay you extra for that?

Kiersten: Uh, I didn't shower today. I'm planning to later. But it's early and I'm not a nonfiction writer so I wasn't going to--

Me: Yeah, yeah. Hygiene. So what is PARANORMALCY about?

Kiersten: Well, it's a paranormal with romance and--

Me: Why didn't you call it Paranormalromancy then? Because that would have been more accurate.

Kiersten: I'll keep that in mind for the sequel. [Explains a bunch of stuff about theme and identity and mermaids that I don't totally follow, but mostly because I am still hung up on the fact that she wrote an amazing novel in three weeks. THREE. It sometimes takes me three weeks to decide what kind of sandwich I want.]

Kiersten: You know, I really have to go and take a shower. I'll see you later. Or not. How do you block someone on Twitter? Never mind. I'll just ask Greg Pincus.

See? Taking a relationship from Twitter to real life is amazing. I will be a fan of Kiersten's work for life. And I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

Jolie Stekly interviewed Kiersten for real. Here's the footage:




* Note. Most of this is made up. And that, my friends, is called fiction. Stay tuned for an actual interview with Kiersten on my regular blog.

SCBWI TEAM BLOG Pre-conference Interview: Greg Pincus

The latest SCBWI TEAM BLOG Annual Summer Conference faculty interview happens is with TEAM BLOG captain Alice Pope's presenter partner-in-crime, author and guru of social media Greg Pincus. Greg and Alice will be offering two ProTrack sessions at the conference: SOCIAL NETWORKING/TWITTER 101 and MOVING YOUR CAREER FORWARD WITH SOCIAL NETWORKING AND BLOGGING.

Here's the beginning of Martha's post--the interview (of course!) was conducted via Twitter. Click here to read the full interview with Greg on the SCBWI WWA blog.

Greg Pincus, a member of the 2010 SCBWI summer conference faculty, is a man of many talents. He's a poet, novelist, screenwriter, volunteer elementary school librarian, and social media consultant. (Here's his really useful site.)

He's also a poster-boy for what social media can do for a writer. After the mathematically inspired form of poetry he invented went viral and hit The New York Times, Greg found himself with a two-book deal with Arthur A. Levine Books.

Click here to register so you can meet Greg (and Alice) and the many other terrific presenters. 

Jenn Bailey - Sweet Tweet: Maximize Your Online Presence with Twitter

The entire live blog post will be composed of tweets: all 140 characters or less. #scbwi09

We've been finding ways to stay in touch for a long time. This is just a new way to do it. #scbwi09


Twitter is joining the gang for a drink. #scbwi09



Messages spread like crazy on this network. #scbwi09



Then you have to find people. And you have to participate. Participating is very fast. #scbwi09

Share the love. It’s how things go viral. Be generous. #scbwi09

Be accessible. Be relevant. Be informative, inspiring, or entertaining. #scbwi09

This is a great time to jump on the Twitter bus. #scbwi09

You need to be a friend to get a friend. #scbwi09

Be aware of TMI (too much information). #scbwi09

Great people to follow: @egmontgal #scbwi09

Great people to follow: @jonbard #scbwi09

Who’s doing it right: @cynthea #scbwi09

POSTED JOLIE STEKLY
or on twitter...http://twitter.com/cuppajolie