Wednesday, March 22, 2006



I am sitting here with my Border's coffee, (not to be mistaken with Starbucks, which is much better) thinking through the many subjects I could talk about this morning.
If I make any tying errors I am caffiene deprived so be kind lol...

I used to sign on with authors to do their promo on a monthly fee basis and coordinated all fo their needs. One subject that came up with all of these clients was CHATS...So I decided this was a good topic. It is also one I am opinionated about and if you take any of my classes or even read this blog you will discover that I am often that! I don't deny it. So...

To chat or not to chat, that is the question....

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First - What is a chat?

Review sites have chatrooms and they schedule authors to come to that on line chatroom and talk to readers.

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For the review site a chat is a dream come true. They simply set up a schedule and have a chat moderator there during chat times. The author goes out and tells the world to come chat at that REVIEW site. The review site gets LOTS of free advertising.

Readers - the same ones come to almost all chats....its is rare to get a group over 15 and 5-8 is more likely. I don't care WHAT review site it is. This is just the way it is. AND...write down the names. I bet after a few chats you will find that the SAME people are there...


For the author...Is there a benefit.. YES and NO...I'll explain:

If you are a new author trying to break into the scene OR a print author who hasn't grabbed the pool you can get to on the internet, then promoting the chats on all of the yahoo loops gives you EXCUSES to send you name and books out in a promo. The chat itself is not the WIN. The promos that repeat your name is what is the win.

EXAMPLE: I worked with a Harlequin category author. When I said her name to a bunch of readers on a loop, they said WHO? These are readers who buy 20-30 books a month. They would LOVE to add another favorite to the list but they often don't know the authors so they simply don't buy them. If you are a category or midlist author who needs more readers, loop promos to the internet resource of readers can jumpstart your new pool of readers. Chats give you an excuse to do this.

Another time is right before a big release. Let's say you are a category or new NYC author or even a midlist author and you really need a buzz. An excuse to put that book in people's face over and over and to do it free is delivered with CHATS... Again its not the people AT THE CHAT but all the ones who see the promotion of the chat that makes this work...now remember to do this you MUST send out promos to a good 15 or 20 yahoo lists of readers otherwise the value factor of getting the book in front of thousands of readers is LOST!

Now, once you do a rush of chats, continuing to do them is a waste of valuable time. You could be writing books. Still, its a good way to JUMPSTART and that is the ONLY time I suggest it.

Convincing authors of this is often hard. See, authors, especially those who start small press, see other authors chatting and they feel they must do it too. Usually after finding themeselves exhausted and talking to the same people night after night, they decide they don't want to live every night doing chats...

So, yes there is a VALUE to chats.

Remember to put a dollar figure on your time!
Time.....Your biggest assett....How much is it worth..


•Math Problem Illustrates the Issue:
–First, give yourself a salary - $10/hour
–Then calculate the amount of time an activity will take – A reader’s loop takes an hour of your time per day/5 days per week, 4 weeks per month
–How much will you get “paid” during this time? $200/month
–At $2/book royalties, calculate how many books you must sell to make the activity worth it. In this case, are you getting an increased lift of 100 books per month?

FEEL free to ask questions about chats! Shoot them at me!

Lisa
Posted by Lisa Renee Jones :: 9:27 PM :: 0 Comments:

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