Oh, it's not a troll. It's someone accusing me of plagiarising myself. A pitch I posted on Goodreads (in a beta group) must be bloody amazing because she remembers it almost word for word, and that was six months ago.
I think still troll-esque, really, because why the hell wouldn't she answer your basic questions, why did she come in so aggressively, etc.? It's hardly unthinkable that a person might post about her book in more than one place. And once you clarified, she didn't apologize or anything. So, maybe not a troll, but... an orc? And what is this "professional" group screening for plagiarism if there are more than three words put together the same way as in another book? I WISH there was a professional body devoted to fighting plagiarism, but I've had an entire book lifted and no professional body stepped in to help out with that! (and three words? Seriously? Like "I wanted to" or "She couldn't believe" or "and then I" - she thinks that's a realistic level of plagiarism screening to use? Anyway, I thought you handled it really well, so - congratulations, and welcome to crazy-ville!
Right? The three words thing made me laugh. Surely if you took any two novels written in the same language you're going to get hundreds of instances of the same three words being used together? My master's course uses plagiarism software and you have to get above 20% of your phrasing used in other works in the database before they even bat an eyelid. 10-20% is expected. Looking on the bright side, there's someone out there FEROCIOUSLY defending my novel premise.
What, you TOO are in graduate school, just like the real author of this novel? Are you plagiarising the real author's LIFE as well as her words? Shameful!
...okay, it is a troll again. :S Now she's actively lying and has got a friend involved. Obviously needs a job. Grr.
My Facebook page just keeps up with my progress. My webpage, www.lewis-mcintyre.com, just has my bio, the Eagle and the Dragon, reviews from beta readers (all loved it, some from this site) and other WIP. I have a day job, no time to blog, so the webpage cannot be posted from outside forcing me to manage it. Like @TheRealStegblob, I have a lot of reservations about social media. I consider 140 character tweets to be brainfarts.
I went the opposite way; for years I had a blog where I posted on a myriad of subjects, history, sports, miscellaneous jibberish but it was all really to no end goal. Then I stopped updating it, and there is nothing sadder in my opinion than a blog that isn't updated. Now that I am three published books in, it seems to make sense to have some kind of landing page for people to know about me. Seems crass to keep directing to Amazon so I deleted my blog and redid my website to basically be a 'advert' for me if you will. If people now want to know about my books etc, I give them this link and hope they will independently move onto Amazon. Just looks more professional and add credibility to have a 'professional' looking website. I guess, with Facebook, the only thing is to try and grow organically. Take a look at major sites and try to replicate. Keep professional, keep it looking nice, don't just post poorly-constructed nonsense just for the sake of it. Also, pictures. Pictures work a charm because they get shared. You're looking for something that will get a lot of attention that will deflect to your books. Nobody cares about a link about a book or someone trying to sell something, so I guess the trick is to try and promte your stuff secondary.
Why should I bother. No one knows me, and by extension would probably not read my book anyway. (Though it will make the sequel easier to understand.) I might do a free first book for a few months after the release of the sequel. Then I will be a generous nobody, that nobody will read. Its the thought that counts.
Even having my own website, even if nobody visits, motivates me. It stimulates me into believing my own worth as an author. Dress for the job you want, and all that.
Updating since September, a lot has happened. Published two books, especially. My website is still active, has links to Amazon for purchases, but gets few visits, about 200 per mo. Set up and author's FB page, with nothing but my books on it. I have had a lot of success with boosted posts that reach thousands for very little money, and each like to the boost can be turned into a request to like the page, which means they will pick up my subsequent posts. Sales are up, so something is working, not sure what.
@Tea@3 I guess we will have to do as all great artists do to get famous: Die. We just need to bust ass, and work the best we can to get exposure with what we know. The published authors don't know the struggles of us little people.
I love looking at stats, especially when I have visitors from like Outer Mongolia. And without stats I wouldn't know what kind of searches are bringing people to my site: ETA: I've never looked too much into these before and it's fascinating! Other searches that've got me hits:
Fascinating. I missed the jump to stats talk. Where are these search results coming from? (@Tenderiser ) Also, does ETA mean 'estimated time of arrival' or something else? ('scuse my ignorance)
