I’m trying hard to get a better handle on how to do Facebook / social media effectively. I find it all VERY TEDIOUS and something my mind is REALLY NOT SUITED FOR, but I’m trying, people. The kids’ college funds are not as well-funded as I’d like them to be, and if I can sell some more books, etc., that would be VERY NICE.
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Some of the things that I’ve worked on recently:
- I told FB that yes, they could give me money for my reels. So if you click ‘stars’ on my reels, in theory, they’ll eventually send me some money? I don’t know. Worth a shot! I’ve actually started watching a lot of reels, mostly crafting-related, and finding I really like them, so that’s motivating me to make more of my own. Hopefully they’re not annoying you!
- I created a new business page, Serendib House by Mary Anne Mohanraj, and have been inviting my personal page followers to follow it. FB lets me invite 1000 people / day — since I have 8.3K followers, I guess I’ll be done with that in about 8 days, if I’m consistent.
(Totally up to you guys whether to follow it! Both the personal and business page will, I think, have the same writing and arts content most of the time — the personal page is also where I repost funnies, etc. What I think is funny, anyway. I think you can also rate / review the business page, which is a little unnerving, but so far it has four 5 out of 5 reviews, which is nice. I suspect that FB will show the business page to you more often, but I’m really not sure!) - I sent a note to the two business pages I’d created previously, letting my followers know that I was discontinuing those pages, and asking them to follow my personal page, my new business page, or both. Sorry for the chaos, folks, but I hope it’ll be nice and consistent and not confusing going forward! I probably won’t actually delete those pages, because they are my name and Serendib respectively, and I don’t really want someone else grabbing those, but I’m planning to stop posting to them.
- I met with a local friend who kindly offered to show me how to set up targeting on FB ads (and wouldn’t even let me pay her). We spent an hour together and set up two kinds of targeting groups — one for the whole United States (for sales and things where I might be shipping books and art and such), and one local (more for local events I’m hosting, for pop-ups, and for my Berwyn Sprout shop).
- I set a tiny ($3 / day) ad running for a week; will be curious to see how that does for bringing new followers in. (Probably should have tested that some week when I wasn’t also inviting all my friends to follow the business, but I *think* FB will show me analytics on the ad results specifically. We’ll see.
- I tried to read a very long and detailed post about targeted Amazon ads for books and it just made me want to cry, so I saved it for later. I might ask Stephanie to look at it, though I suspect she doesn’t like this kind of thing any more than I do. She makes beautiful books for me, though, so I think I’m going to keep her. (She is also available for other folks, should they want to do an indie-published book; she knows how to handle pictures for layout with InDesign. Let me know if you want to be put in touch.)
- I’m planning to run a Veganuary sale for the last week of January, starting tomorrow (Wednesday). I just have to figure out how much of a discount I can offer on the vegan Sri Lankan cookbooks (which are print-on-demand, and therefore pretty expensive to print) without losing money! More on that very soon. I’ll probably try setting up a United States targeted ad for that as well? I haven’t figured out yet if I can do targeting other than geographic on FB — it’d be incredible if I could, say, target vegans. (Target in a good way. In a way they’d like. Telling them about delicious recipes they’d be excited to try. Gah, the word ‘target’ is really not ideal for this.)
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I really probably should’ve taken a business class somewhere along the line. I’m sure I’m doing all SORTS of things wrong. There are plenty of free business seminars offered through the Village, etc., not to mention YouTube videos, etc., but:
a) time is always the issue, and
b) I don’t actually want to learn this stuff.
I’D MUCH RATHER MAKE THINGS THAN SELL THEM.
But I’m trying.
(And yes, all of this ties to the big problems-in-publishing post I promised you. Still planning to write that. Might need to be a series of posts. More soon, hopefully.)
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In-progress pic of the delicious vegan beet curry I cooked yesterday. Terrific complement to the very non-vegan tamarind black pork curry I made the day before, served with fresh basmati rice.
Sri Lankan Beet Curry
(30 minutes, serves 4)
This dish has a lovely sweet flavor with just a hint of spice—beets have a higher sugar content than any other vegetable, and sugar is sometimes made from beets.
3 medium onions, chopped fine
3 TBL vegetable oil
1/4 tsp black mustard seed
1/4 tsp cumin seed
4 large beets (about one lb), peeled, cut in thick matchsticks
1-2 rounded tsp salt
1 rounded tsp turmeric
2-3 tsp lime juice
1-3 chopped green chilies
two dozen curry leaves (optional)
2 cups coconut milk
1. Sauté onions in oil on high with mustard seed and cumin seeds until onions are golden/translucent (not brown). Add beets, salt, turmeric, lime juice, chilies, and curry leaves.
2. Lower heat to medium and add coconut milk. Cover and cook, stirring frequently, until beets are cooked through, about 20 minutes.
3. Remove cover and simmer, stirring, until well blended. Serve hot.