Random Writing Tips – An interesting use for libraries/Twitter

 

At the beginning of the year, I did a post on my writing goals for 2021.  One thing I left off that list because it only relates to writing, is that I want to sell more of my Kindle books this year.  That’s a great goal, but how does one try to do that?  I don’t know.  Which is why I’m trying some things this year to see if I can find something that seems to work so I can expand on it in the coming years. 

While I would love to see all of my books get attention, I’m only going to focus on some of them.  And while I would love to see more sales in all markets, I’m also only going to focus on a few, like Australia.  If I figure anything out in selling Book A in Australia, maybe I can apply that to selling Book B in Brazil.

So how can someone living in the US get more sales in Australia?  Well, I figure the first step is getting people in Australia to know that I exist.  How can I do that, that’s cheap?  After some thought, this is what I’ve come up with.

It is really easy to search online for a list of libraries in some place, say Australia.  The majority of these libraries have webpages.  Now, I haven’t crunched the numbers, but it seems that only about a third of libraries also have Twitter accounts.  Some libraries are famous for one reason or another and have thousands of followers.  But other, smaller, libraries only have a few hundred followers.  Now, who would follow the Twitter account of a small library in a small Australian town?  Probably the locals who use that library. 

At this point some of you probably think that I just randomly follow a bunch of Australian people in the hope that some of them will check me out and hopefully buy some of my books.  I’m not that tacky.  I will read through the people following this small Australian library and if I see any with bios saying that they are “avid readers” or “lovers of all things sf,” those are the ones I will follow. 

So if you are trying to target people in some specific place, this might be one way to try to reach them.  Having only followed a few dozen such people (2021 feels really busy, but I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything) and not yet having any sales in Australia this year, I can’t say how successful this scheme will be.  But there’s only one way to find out if this works.  If it does, I might tell you.  Or I might keep the secret to myself.  We’ll see.

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Image from Pixabay.