Author guest post – Julie Ryan

Another guest post day on Being Anne – and I’m really pleased to be able to introduce you to author Julie Ryan. I can’t remember how Julie and I first “met”, but I think it might have been through our shared support of the tours organised by Brook Cottage Books (Julie is a blogger and reviewer too) – and, of course, we’re both members of Book Connectors, the Facebook group for authors and bloggers that’s fast becoming everyone’s favourite place to hang out. 

Julie’s another member of my “authors I love but have never read” club – and I really should put that right at some point. Her three book series has a setting that appeals to me greatly, having spent almost all my holidays in the 1970s to 1990s in the Greek islands. 

More about the books later, but first I’m delighted to welcome Julie to Being Anne, with a beginners’ guide to becoming social media savvy. Over to you Julie…

It’s hard to believe now but back in 2013 I self-published my first book on Amazon yet just six months earlier – technophobe that I am – I wasn’t on any social media platforms except Facebook. Even then, my Facebook account was limited to about five good friends and so I emailed them instead and couldn’t see much point in any of it to be honest. 

Meeting another self-pubbed writer made me realise that if I wanted to sell any books then I needed to up my game – a lot! After all, people can’t buy your books if they don’t know about them. Even if you are fortunate enough to get a publishing contract, the likelihood is that you will still need to be very active on social media and it may even be that your social presence is a factor in getting the contract in the first place.

Twitter

Set up an account and don’t forget to add a photo and a short bio to your profile. Many people won’t follow you without them, as you look ‘spammy’ otherwise. Then start following a few people you like the look of. 

Start tweeting – you can write messages using up to 140 characters so this is an exercise in being concise. You can tag people in the message too but remember this counts as part of the number of characters. I also discovered that if you tag the person first, then that is the only person to see your post. If you tag them later on in the message then it’s visible to all your followers. Tweets with a photo attached also seem to attract more attention.

At the beginning it’s fun to watch your followers rise – don’t forget to follow them back. This will slow down when you get to about 2000 followers as Twitter imposes a limit and if the difference in numbers between those you’ve followed and those who follow you is too great, then you either have to ‘unfollow’ some or wait until you get new followers before you can follow anyone new.

Facebook

It took me a while, but now that I have a lot of contacts on Facebook I have to say that I love the interaction. Join a few online groups and hopefully you’ll find like-minded people. If you’re an author then you’ll really need a separate page for your books so that you’re not bombarding friends and family with book news all the time and vice-versa, people who are interested in your books can find out more without scrolling through pages of family news.

Pinterest

This is like an online scrapbook where you can ‘collect’ pins (photos) on a theme and put them together to form your own collection. If you’re not careful this can become an obsession resulting in many hours ‘wasted’ but it can be useful for research. That’s what I tell myself anyway.

Whatever you decide to do, enjoy it and use wisely!

Thanks Julie – like you, I learn something new about using social media daily! Let’s have a look at Julie’s Greek Island Mysteries: all can be read as stand-alones, but characters do reappear… click on the book titles to be taken to the Amazon purchase page.

Jenna’s Journey

Leaving town, heading to the Greek Isles without telling husband or friends, is heady medicine for a failing marriage. Seduced by Grecian sun and sky, Jenna innocently buys a bewitching urn that tangles her into the web of a criminal world more sinister than she ever imagined. Romance is always afoot in the Greek Isles and Jenna gets a large helping with the seductive Nikos. Family is important in Greece, and Nikos helps Jenna learn all the richness it brings, and pass it on to the next generation. 

Twenty-five years later, Allie takes this same journey, and a little time travel, a big “what if” dream, a fated meeting with a taxi driver and a sprinkle of paranormal intrigue intertwine in a story that spans the lives of a mother and daughter. Twisty as the streets in a Greek island village, full of unexpected characters found on a faraway vacation and frightening in the threats that nasty villains throw out, Jenna’s Journey will keep you turning pages far into the night. 

Working out a lifetime of secrets, imagining what might have been, eluding nasty antiquities thieves, exploring a new love—how would you have gotten yourself through? Grab the sunny blue thread of Jenna’s adventure and see how she changed her life in one journey…

Sophia’s Secret 

Kat has never understood why she was sent at the age of seven from Greece to live in England with her Aunt Tigi. When she receives an email from her grandmother, the first contact in over twenty years, informing her of her mother’s death, she knows this could be her last chance to find out the truth. Little by little she finds out the shocking facts as her grandmother opens her heart. It seems everyone has a secret to tell, not only her grandmother, as Manoli, her school friend, also harbours a guilty secret. Then there’s a twenty year old mystery to solve as well as a murder – and what happened to the missing Church treasure? 

Pandora’s Prophecy

Lisa and Mark are going through a rough patch, Vicky is seventeen and has just discovered that the man she thought was her father really isn’t, Ruth is getting over her husband’s betrayal after nearly twenty-five years of marriage. On the surface they have nothing in common except that they are all staying in the same hotel on a Greek Island. 

As they each come into contact with the mysterious Pandora, their lives will change forever. Bodies begin to pile up as a serial killer is on the loose who might just be targeting the hotel. The Island’s Police Chief, Christos Pavlides, tries to solve the puzzle but he has problems of his own to resolve. It seems that the local celebrity author is the one who holds the key.

About the author

Julie Ryan was born in a small mining village in South Yorkshire. Not venturing too far from home, she studied French Language and Literature at Hull University, where she also trained as a teacher. Then the wanderlust kicked in and she lived and worked in France, Poland, Thailand and Greece. This broadening of the mind has had an enormous impact on her writing. She now lives in rural Gloucestershire with her husband, son and dippy cat with half a tail. She is a bookaholic with a one-click addiction.

You can catch up with her via her blog, website, Twitter or Facebook: she can also be found on Pinterest and Goodreads. For anyone looking for her books on Amazon.com, she has an author page here.