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That's right, you can now follow my blog with Bloglovin by clicking the link! I don't have too much else to say on this subject other than - give me a follow!

Top 10 social media reactions and memes to Brazil's 7-1 World Cup defeat to Germany!

After just 30 minutes from kick-off at last night's World Cup semi-final in Belo Horizonte, the floodgates opened and I'm not talking about the free-scoring Germans! As one Tweet read: Twitter was made for games like this.

There was a record-breaking 35.6 million Tweets during Brazil's crushing 7-1 defeat to Germany as social media went crazy. And just like the Luis Suarez biting incident proved, this World Cup is a much better place for some of the hilarious virals we have seen during this tournament!

There really were too many of them flying around last night for me to do them justice (over 35 million!!) but here are 10 of my favourites (in no particular order)...

10. #ThingsMoreLikelyThanBrazilWinningTheWorldCup
Twitter naturally went hashtag crazy last night and it wasn't long before this one got trending!

9. We were all doing the Tim Cahill!
When Australia midfielder tweeted a picture of himself holding his hand over his mouth in shock after Brazil had conceded five goals in 30 minutes the hashtag #TimCahilling got started and I even got involved in the action with my cat!

8. Beware of what you endorse!
Footballer's will put their name to anything to make an extra few quid but I bet Neymar never saw this one coming back to haunt him!

7. David Moyes disguised as Luiz Felipe Scolari
Poor old Davey Moyes. It's bad enough the stick he got at Man Utd without having his name dragged through this mud as well!

 

6. David Brent gets in on the action

This tweet from @thecedo got a retweet from Ricky Gervais himself!

 

5. Jägerbomb...

... or Turbojäger as it is known in Germany! This was one of the best Vines of the night.

4. Sideshow Luiz!

The comparison between David Luiz and The Simpson's character Sideshow Bob are nothing new, but it didn't mean the jokes were any less funny! Here is one of the best...

3. Alternative commentary from the WWE!

WWE commentator Jim Ross got involved in the action as this YouTube clip shows good old JR calling the game wrasslin' style!

2. You have to love Pornhub!

That's it, there isn't anything else to say - you just have to love Pornhub. Oh, and this Tweet was pretty funny as well!

1. We fucked up!

I'll leave the final word to those crazy cats over @BBCSporf who did a great job rubbing salt in the wounds, this time using the ultimate lad film The Hangiover to taunt the transfer fee paid by PSG for David Luiz...

Books For Men Book Reviews goes social!

Just as the headline suggests, I have decided to create a Facebook page and a Twitter account exclusively for my Books For Men Book Reviews blog! Please check them out at the links below and show your support with either a cheeky Like or a friendly Follow to keep up to date with all the latest Books For Men Book Reviews!

Lad Lit Book Reviews: The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich

It is hard to imagine a time before Google, before YouTube, before Twitter. They have become so ingrained in our psyche. But the one social platform that has become entwined into a normal everyday life more than any is Facebook.

A staggering 71% of the British public log in to Facebook every day, over 1 billion users worldwide have signed up, and it is worth an estimated $15m. That's a lot of people looking at a lot of ex's! Quite impressive for a company that launched in 2005.

But the most impressive fact of all has nothing to do with the size of the audience or the staggering value of a company barely out of nappies. The most impressive fact is that Facebook was created so guys could rate girls based om their level of hotness! That's it! No fancy business plan or 5-year strategy to make that first million. The fact is Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in his dorm room at Harvard University so we could perv over the girl next door!

In this book from Ben Mezrich - which inspired the Oscar-nominated The Social Network - Zuckerberg is potrayed somewhat as the bad guy; which is probably due to the fact he refused to take part in the project. The story is fused together from a number of interviews and sources; most notably Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and the Winklevoss Twins, who would all end up in bitter legal and court wranglings with Zuckerberg over the ownership of Facebook in the years that proceeded the social networks launch.

Mezrich freely admits that he uses a certain amount of creative freedom when writing his books for entertainment purposes and to 'fill in the gaps'. I've read enough of his books to know that he also likes to follow a certain pattern: super intelligent college kid gets involved with something dangerous or cool, he has a love interest who he inevitably will win over in the end, and there is always a dark or siniister undertone hanging around in background ready to rear its ugly little head.

Mezrich is adept at working with a specific type of main character and creating a world around them that is exciting, sexy, and cool. That environment works when you have a bunch of MIT students taking on the Las Vegas casinos, but it feels a little unbelievable at times in the surroundings this story is set in. After all, this is a story about an internet geek who sat in his dorm room looking at images of girls on his computer screen. Again, nothing wrong with that - we've all been there! But Zuckerberg is a man described in the book blurb as an 'awkward maths prodigy and a painfully shy computer genius' and therefore it's hard to see how this story has been billed as tale of sex, money, and betrayal. Money, yes. Betrayal, ish. Sex, zero.

I think this is a book that probably needed to be written because of the historical importance it plays in modern culture, but I don't think the test subject allows Mezrich to be at his best. It's also the only time (as far as I'm aware) in a Mezrich non-fiction book where the story is not told from the main protagonist so you never feel like you are getting the whole story of what really happened with the invention of a modern masterpiece.

It's a good read, and if you have never read a Mezrich book before then no doubt you will find it enjoyable. But my advice would be after you have read this book, make sure you pick up a copy of Bringing Down the House or Busting Vegas to read Mezrich at his very best.

Advice for Indie Authors: An online audience is a great starting point

If there is a huge excitement on the day your book actually gets published, you will unfortunately experience an anti-climax in the aftermath once the dust has settled. Please don't misunderstand what I am saying - I am not trying to put a downer on things! But seeing your book on Amazon is one thing, now getting people to buy it is something completely different.

Once you have exhausted your friends and family, if you are serious about getting your book noticed, you are going to have to start branching out. Previously I have talked about how I had got the ball rolling with a series of interviews with local newspapers. But now I need to find an audience of potential buyers for my book and that is not easy. I did not realise how time consuming this part of my book publishing adventure would be. I knew I would have to put time and effort in, but I wasn't quite prepared for just how much time and effort!

It has literally taken over my life! If you are thinking about self-publishing but you are a bit work-shy, then I would give up now! Seriously, give up and find a different hobby, perhaps something like bingo, or even bowls - that is quite slow-paced. Because a day has not passed in the last couple of weeks without me doing something to try and promote my book.

The first thing I did was trawl the internet (no, not for that you filthy beggar!). I have continued to build on the in-roads I had been making with social media. Try to find out what the relevant hashtags are that will attract readers to your book. I have been using a series of hashtags including:

• #books
• #ebooks
• #fiction
• #paperback
• #kindle
• #indieauthor
• #selfpublishing
• #readthis

The thing is, I am only scratching the surface with this list, and for every Tweet I post, there are a thousand others like this. I whole-heartedly recommend you use Hootsuite, as this is really is a fantastic tool to schedule your social media posts, and saves you having to put time to one side every time you want to post something on Twitter or Facebook.

But the one hashtag I have had the most success with has been #competition. About two weeks prior to The Drought being published I set up a competition using social media, offering a free signed copy of my novel and a £25 Amazon voucher. As well as using the #competition hashtag, I also posted my Tweets with tags such as #win and #giveaway. All people had to do was follow me on Twitter and Like my Facebook page. In less than a week I had over 400 followers on Twitter and over 300 Likes on Facebook. It is amazing what people will do for free stuff! I now have strangers Re-Tweeting my posts and leaving comments on Facebook. I now have an audience.

I continued to build upon this audience using online forums. I posted information about the competition and picked up followers there, but now I was picking up genuine book lovers and avid readers. But you have to be careful with with forums and not go too overboard with the self-promotion. You have to remember that the people on these forums are like little communities. They come to these online meeting points to discuss their favourite books with like-minded people, and you will slowly irritate them and lose their interest if you simply post topics about how great your book is. You need to fully immerse yourself within these online communities; get involved with their discussions and engage in debate with these people. Forums are a slow-burner but they are well worth the effort and the benefit will be worth it in the long-run. I have already managed to sell a couple of eBooks and get some reviews on Amazon from people in these communities.

And last. but by no means least - blogging. Content is king with it comes to people finding you on the net. I have already established a healthy amount of content on my own website, but a good blog will encourage people to engage with you. It also puts your book in the shop window, and by using Amazon Associates, you can also advertise your book on your blogs to boost sales.

A special mention for book sharing website BookCrossing.com. I am planning to send copies of my book out into the 'wild' for people to find. For example, I left one book on a London Tube for someone to find. Each book you leave is assigned a special ID number generated by BookCrossing.com. When someone finds that book, they can log-on to BookCrossing.com and post information about where they found the book, and a review, before passing the book on for someone else to find.

I plan on sending about 25 copies out into the wild between now and the end of the year, so make sure you check out the blog to find out where they turn up (see you're interested already!).

This blog was originally posted on printweek.com

Advice for Indie Authors: The social media opportunity

At the start of this year a story appeared on printweek.com about Bristol printer Business Forms Express (BFE), who had made the bold move to drop their own website in favour of a Facebook page. At the time, managing director Colin Roberts, said the company was “moving with the times”. I’m not too sure how that move has worked out for BFE, but it certainly highlights just how much social media is regarded as a marketing and business tool.

No one could have predicted the growth and strength of Facebook when it was launched in 2004. After all, it was originally designed for horny college students to track down girls. Fast forward seven years and it is now worth $50 billion, and as of July 2011 it has 750 million users. And whether you are an indie author like me, or a printer based in Bristol, the great thing about social media sites is that they are absolutely free to use. Self-publishing my novel, The Drought, means I am solely responsible for all of the marketing.

“Conventionally published books previously held the public eye, funded by publishers with vast marketing budgets and contacts in high places,” Sarah Juckes, Head of Company Marketing at self-publishing house Pen Press, explains. “But now, the balance has shifted, giving the indie author the chance to reach a mass audience that was previously unavailable without huge funding. Twitter, Facebook, websites and blogs have become must-have marketing tools for every author.”

But the real challenge with social media is that you are competing with millions of people all trying to promote one thing or another; whether it is a business or simply someone who is willing to shave their hair off if they get one million people to 'Like' their group. It doesn’t matter how many friends you have on Facebook, you cannot simply rely on these people to be your customers. You need to expand. Like any marketing strategy, the key is to plan your attack on this huge audience. My book should be published in August, but my digital and social media marketing campaign started over eight months ago. I wanted to build up some momentum so when I had a publication date, I would already have started to raise awareness.

Personally I believe a website is just as important as any social media tools available, because I use it as the central hub that points at everything that I do. I specifically planned to have my website created at the start of the year because I found out that it can take up to six months before search engines like Google start to trust your content and therefore improve your search engine optimization (SEO) ranking. I had my site created by a fantastic small web design company called Advanced Web Creations who specialise in websites for small to medium local businesses. They were extremely accommodating, professional, and perhaps most importantly – great value for money.

Content is key when it comes to a website, as you want as much related content to your product as possible in order to appear high in the natural search. This is one of the main reasons I started performing at open mic stand-up comedy nights. My book is a comedy novel, so I was able to film my stand-up comedy shows and upload them to YouTube as well as my own website.

Anyone searching for "comedy" could now potentially stumble across my website. I am now tapping into the video-sharing community, as well as getting my name out there as a comedian and raising my profile. If people like my comedy, then hopefully they will take an interest in the book. Keeping with the comedy theme, I also started to blog about my experience on the stand-up circuit, and linked everything back to my website. I was slowly starting to build my online “brand” across various different websites, and increasing my SEO presence across different platforms.

These rules apply to any type of business, whereby you upload content about your products and services, and that is the mindset I am trying to get into - an indie author is a business.

LinkedIn is undoubtedly a fantastic business tool, but how could I use this as an independent author? This is where you have to start mixing and matching your social media activities. I have been blogging on printweek.com about my experience of self-publishing with Pen Press since April, so I found relevant self-publishing groups on LinkedIn and posted the URL to my blogs in these groups, as well as in any self-publishing forums I could fine online. This has produced feedback from other authors and those working in the publishing sector across the globe, and has made my name aware to people I never normally would have gotten the chance to put myself in front of.

So now I have the website, the YouTube videos, and the blogs. It was time to unleash this content on to the big boys of the social media world – namely Facebook and Twitter. I have had an account on Twitter for a couple of years, without really doing anything with it other than informing my 9 followers what I was having for dinner. But since using my tweets to promote both my stand-up comedy and the upcoming release of my novel, my followers have grown to 174.

“Twitter allows the author to set up a voice among the millions, following and engaging with his/her targeted readership,” Sarah Juckes told me. “The author can tweet about the book’s themes, characters, plot etc, and cause a stir that could quite literally spread to the masses. Every tweet has the ability to cause worldwide interest.”

But how?

“It isn’t enough to tweet to an empty room – Twitter, like everything, takes work,” Sarah continues. “The author must engage - using tools like the hashtag (#) to tap into discussions, Direct Messaging and @ing individuals to build up a reputation as being someone worth following. Once they have a follow base of readers, the author can start selling, directing the masses to the book on Amazon, the blog with free snippets of the book, perhaps even to the free eBook downloads as rewards for those who help spread the word.”

“Once Twitter has them hooked, Facebook can keep them in the boat. A ‘like’ of the author/book page means that person will see updates and giveaways amongst their friends’ personal updates every time they log in. Facebook is for friends – it is more intimate. This is how you can get a casual follower to become a guaranteed book buyer – perfect for those sequels.”

Creating a Facebook page has been the most recent piece of my social media marketing puzzle. For someone to “Like” you on Facebook, there needs to be a good reason. My stand-up comedy gave me a reason to develop a page and 105 likes later, I now have a decent sized audience, who have bought into my brand of comedy from my open mic performances, that I will be able to promote my book to.

“Of course, this just the tip of the iceberg,” Sarah says of the social media opportunities. “YouTube and the boom of the book trailer is a great way of directing people to your book – giving them a feel in pictures and sound rather than tweet after tweet saying the same thing. Goodreads and Shelfari allow the author to tap directly into a book-buying demographic. The blogs of others generate discussions the author can involve themselves in, and their own blog will normally allow readers to subscribe to the blog and updates.”

Social media can be as much about research as it is anything else. Whatever type of business you are in, take the time to do your homework before launching into a social media marketing plan. Could you really imagine creating your own video advertisement 10 years ago to promote one of your products? Social media has opened up that door to the masses. Use it in the right way, and you will get results.

I am not suggesting that social media is the only tool you will need. Printed marketing material is just as important as digital, and that is why I contacted Authors Essentials who specialise in various book marketing needs from eBooks to websites to printed material. They are also currently promoting a short story competition with the prize being a Bronze publishing package with Pen Press. (Competition closes August 20 - check out link for more details). But this is a story for another blog...

I’m off now to film my book trailer – Hollywood here I come. Well, sort of.

This blog was originally posted on printweek.com

New Facebook page for The Drought!

With the impending release of my debut novel, The Drought, I have set-up a Facebook page for fans. Just go to www.facebook.com/TheDroughtBook and give the book a "Like"!