John Locke is following me!
Yesterday I got a Twitter message that John Locke is following me! Imagine my excitement that the epub guru was following me, an epub novice. Heady stuff. My elation was short-lived, however, when I sent Mr. Locke a message and saw that he follows 22,000 people!
Twenty-two thousand. Think about it—how is it possible to follow that many tweeters (twitterers?) without sitting in front of your computer 24/7? A person would have no time for such mundane things as eating, sleeping, or recreational activities. Does Locke have a Portapotty next to his computer? An IV in his arm feeding him the necessary nutrients to maintain the energy to communicate with such a mass of fans? I wonder about that, don’t you?
Recently I read Locke’s book on epublishing. He put a lot of emphasis on building one’s following (fan base, I believe he called it) and on staying in touch with fans by personal email. Make friends, he advised.
I’ve been following his plan for three months now and have acquired about four people that I would call fans. I enjoy them and consider them friends. So, by John’s principles, if I continue at this pace, I’ll have enough fans to make my writing successful when I an a hundred and ten!
Interesting stuff, right?
After reading this blog, you might be curious if I still look up to Mr. Locke as the great one in epublishing. Do I? You betcha! Thanks to him and a handful of others like him, struggling newbies like myself have hope!
And it’s that hope that keeps us writing and dreaming of hitting it big on Amazon, just like the rest of the world wants to win the lottery.
Oh, one more thing—we writers would love to win the lottery, too!
John Locke - www.lethalbooks.com
John Locke - www.lethalbooks.com
Only if you count those 4 fans as a finite unit. In other words, your message is only spread to four people. But Twitter friends work exponentially. If you tell four fans, they'll hopefully tell four or 100 friends of their own, which adds up to sixteen or four hundred and then hopefully they'll tell their friends and so on.
ReplyDeleteBesides, anyone with four fan-friends is rich indeed.
D
Quality not quantity but people do easily de-follow so as long as your posts are quality it doesn't matter the quantity. :) I think the important thing is that John found you and thinks you worthy of him clicking the 'follow' button... high praise indeed. Well done Marla. :)
ReplyDeletePS... hey Donna :)
ReplyDeleteHey, I follow writers on Twitter who never follow me back. But you got a follow-back. Bask in the glory! Ignore those other 21,999. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments! In case it didn't come through in this blog, I enjoy and appreciate my new cyber-friends! They always keep me plugging away on my bad days.
ReplyDeleteMarla