sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Got a minute? Social Media in less than 60 seconds

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If you’re a writer or illustrator, you have probably heard that you need to use social media to promote yourself and your books. But if you’re anything like me, you are balancing your creative work with promotion, with raising a family, with reading, with day jobs and author talks and maybe some exercise or some housework or… My point is, you may well feel that social media is just one thing too many. And it can, if you let it, sap a lot of your time. There is no limit to how much time you could spend on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,  and   Instagram (have I missed some? I’m sure I have!)

But we’re living in a digital  world, and the fact is, the things you do on social media can and will attract readers and purchasers, as well as getting your name known for potential speaking gigs.

The good news is, that once you have set up accounts on your chosen social media platforms, there are lots of things you can do in a minute or less that keep your feed ticking over.

  1. Take a photo. Your desk, your bookshelf, a cloud or a bird you saw on your morning walk, your Pelicans through the windowcat, your dog, your book cover, you. Add a sentence or two and you have a perfect post for twitter, Instagram or facebook.
  2. Share a link. Anything you find interesting online, someone else will find interesting too. Again, add a line or two explaining what the link is for, and pop it on twitter or facebook. If you struggle to find interesting stuff, set up a Google alert, or check out Feedly.
  3. Share someone else’s content. Retweet a clever tweet, share a facebook post, repin a pin. Again, adding a sentence or two of your own shows why it’s significant to you.
  4. Interact by liking or commenting on someone else’s status. Start a conversation on twitter, facebook or Instagram.
  5. Join in a challenge or meme. There are lots of such challenges on both Twitter and Fecbook that challenge you to post something every day for a set period (such as the #postitnotepoetry challenge on Twitter in February). Joining up gives you one topic to post about every day for that time. Some ask for a photo each day, others a poem or piece of writing.

You’ll notice that most of these are not about directly promoting yourself. Rather, you are building relationships, with the two fold benefit that when you do promote it becomes more meaningful and effective, and at the same time you are having fun and making new friends. Perhaps that’s the topic for another blog post.

A minute is not a lot of time, and these five things can each be done in less than a minute. Social media doesn’t have to be an all-day every day proposition. In less than the time it’s taken you to read this post, you can tick promotion off your to-do list each day.

(PS. If you want to see what I’m doing on Social Media, you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,  and   Instagram ),

 

 

 

Thoughts on Book Trailers

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With a new book coming in July, and another one just released in February, I have been thinking about book trailers. I haven’t made one in a while, largely because it’s not something I feel super confident about doing.

If you look at my first ever book trailer, made 6 years ago after a one day workshop organised by Writing WA, you’ll see that it was pretty simple:

I used just a few images from the book, music generated by the photo story editor I was using, and my own voice (with the exception of the voice of Pearl, which I coaxed Murphlet 6 to do for me). You can even hear me clicking the mouse to move to the next image during the recording.

My effort pales when compared to this awesome trailer for Toppling, created by librarian/blogger Julie Hembree

I also found an awesome Toppling video, which is not strictly a trailer, though it does promote the book along with showing some truly awesome toppling efforts.

A book trailer is a way of inviting potential readers to connect with a book, to want to pick it up from their nearest bookshop or library and read it. I don’t have a lot of skills in this area, but I have a camera, an ipad and a computer, so perhaps it’s time I think about making some new trailers.

I’m Back!

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Roses are Blue Blog Tour Wrap-Up

Wow! What an eight days! I’ve been all around the blogosphere chatting about Roses are Blue, reading lovely reviews, being quizzed and generally having fun. Today is the last official day of the tour, and time for me to reflect on the week.

The tour started last Tuesday, when  Karen Tyrell’s reviewed Roses on her blog, describing the book as:

“…a heart-warming story dealing with grief, tragedy, and change.”

She is also offering the chance to win a free copy. All you have to do is read the blog post and comment – but you’d best be quick, because this closes on July 31.

On Wednesday the tour moved on to the Alphabet Soup blog, where Roses are Blue was reviewed by a talented 8 year old reviewer, Matilda. She said:

“I would recommend Roses are Blue to my friends because it’s a change from the other sorts of books we read and it could be a true story.”

There is also a give away of a copy of the book on this site. the instructions on how to enter are nice and clear, and you get to check out Rebecca and my other blog, Poetry Tag and see the fun we have playing with words.

Day three I was off to the Kids Book review site, where there was another lovely review, by Tania McCartney who said:

“The depth of her characters, the emotional responses and fears, the gentle hope, is heart-wrenching in all manner of ways.”

I was also there to chat about poetry in all its forms, with a post titled Poetry is Perfect. I managed to limit myself to just eight reasons that poetry is perfect for children – though I could have gone on for days.

Day four arrived and I was up bright and early to chat with Dale Harcombe about Roses are Blue, which she described as:

” a gem of a book”.

She also asked me about some of the aspects no one else has asked me yet – including the naming of Amber and her friend, who all have names that are colours. You can read what I had to say here.

The weekend was here, but no rest for me – though of course one of the great things about a Blog Tour is that you don’t leave home to do it. SO, while I sat in my pyjamas at home I was also being grilled by the DivaBookNerd about all manner of things including my inspirations, diversity, and work-life balance (hah!). You can read the interview here. While there, I was delightedsally murphy and megan daley to find Roses had also been reviewed on the site a few days earlier.

Day six (Sunday) I dropped in to see the lovely Megan at Children’s Books Daily, She asked me ten questions as part of her Book People feature. I talked about my workspace, my routines (double hah!), favourite books and more.  (You can see Megan and I together, on the left, at the launch of Roses in Canberra earlier this year).

Day seven brought tears to my eyes as I read Dimity Powell’s review at the Boomerang Books Blog, where she said:

“Murphy is simply master at massaging sensitive issues into refined, understated yet terrifically moving poetic verse. Her words whisper across the pages with the soft intensity of a mountain breeze.”

Wow. Apparently I’d made Dimity  cry, too, so we had tears together, across the miles.  Dimity also interviewed me, and  got to choose a new name for myself: Aquamarine! If you want to find out more, you’ll have to read the interview.

Yesterday was my final stop but one, and I was delighted to visit the new Australian Children’s Site, where Di Bates wrote a lovely review, saying Roses is:

“…sure to tug at heartstrings.”

I also dropped in to Di’s own blog where I spoke about why and how I write verse novels.

Whew! And so we come to today, where  we are here, wrapping up the week (and a bit) that was, and saying thank you to the awesome ladies who hosted me, and/or my book, and to all the readers who stopped by and read the posts. Part of the purpose for a blog tour is to promote the book – but, to me, it’s also something much more important: a celebration!

S0 thank you for celebrating with me!

big hug sue and claire

Celebrating with my lovely friends Sue and Claire at the launch.

Learning at the Library

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Yesterday I attended an awesome marketing workshop hosted by Writing WA and sponsored by the Australia Council for the Arts.

Fifteen fabulous authors (or fourteen, plus myself) were treated to a huge day of learning presented by Jaki Arthur, who is the  Publicity Manager at  Hachette Australia.  By the end of the day my head was exploding from all the new knowledge and the reminders about how to market myself and my books, and how to focus my efforts on achieving my goals.

Take-aways for the day:

1. If you don’t know what you want to achieve, you won’t achieve it – and you should make the goals big. Yes, I knew this, but it always helps to hear it again and again and again. At the start of the day we all wrote down two of our writer’s goals on stickynotes. Stuck on a white board, most of the goals could have belonged to me.

2. Have an answer ready for the questions: who are you, what do you write, what’s your book  about and so on. And make sure the answer is consistent, so that you’re not confusing yourself or others. Have an answer ready, because you will be asked, but you’ll probably only be asked once by any one enquirer.

3.  Be proactive. Don’t sell yourself short and know how and when to do it. Use platforms you are comfortable with but be prepared to try new things.

4. Be pleasant. Say yes whenever you can, and be grateful and gracious. Knowing the industry helps, so that you know who  does what, how and when, and what your role is there.

5. Above all, the thing I think I needed the most to be reminded of is that as an author you need to really know what’s unique about you and about your work. Why should a festival programmer, media scheduler, librarian etc book you, and why should a buyer choose your book?

There was lots of thinking on the day, lots more on the drive home, and lots more to come, as I use what I learned.

Oh, and of course, the other wonderful thing was the chance to hang out with fellow authors, many of whom were old friends, but others who had I hadn’t met. A wonderful part of any such opportunity is the exchange of experiences during the breaks.

 

 

Moments

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There are many exciting moments in the months ( or years) between writing a book and finally seeing it in print.

There’s the moment when you write (literally or otherwise) the words ‘The End’ (And, of course, it should be said that this may happen multiple times for the one book, as each new draft and set of edits is completed)

There’s the moment when you are offered a contract, the moment you sign it, and the lovely moment when the advance appears in your bank account.

For a picture book,  there’s the wonderful moment when an illustrator agrees to illustrate the story and ‘my’ book becomes ‘our’ book. And, later, the moemnt when you see the illustration roughs, and, of course, the final illustrations.

The special moment I had this morning was, I guess, two special moments.
The moment a Google alert first finds your new book, leading to…
the moment you see your book actually listed on your publsiher’s website and it actually starts to feel like the book is a real live thing that’s actually going to happen.

So, yes, here it is, my next picture book coming out in May:

And here’s where you can see it on the Random House website.

Thank you for sharing my moment.

Murphing Around

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After having an awesome time this past couple of months visiting lots of schools and libraries, I started thinking about my young readers, and how I can interact more with them.  I know lots  of kids do visit my author website (which is high on content), but because this site is aimed also at adults, they may find it too bulky. I also know some come and visit this blog, which is great, but again my blog is aimed chiefly at adults. So Is tarted thinking about a site devoted purely to my readers.
The result is my new Weebly site, Murphing Around. It has a brief bio, details of my trade titles, links to activities relating to my books and a contact form. I also plan to answer readers’ questions, and also highlight young  readers’ reviews of my books,  and am considering a blog on the site as well.
I chose Weebly because it is so very easy to use and has the option of combining blogging with a website. It took me less than an hour to set up the site, because it is all drag and drop. You don’t need to know any fancy html in order to create a good looking site. I would love it if you would checkit out and let me know what you think. And if you have any young readers, I’d especially love them to visit and comment.
Have a great day!
sallymurphy.com.au