Surfing through my twitter feed, I saw something interesting about online newspapers that Molly Greene tweeted. A couple clicks later and all I could say was “COOOOL!” Molly had a guest post by Paul Dorset, a successful author and twitter marketer about a fantastic website, Paper.Li where you can create a curated list from twitter that appears as an online newspaper. Immediately, I set about creating and publishing my own. This is a boon for any indie-author. I’m an independent creator. The idea of easily creating and publish online a product that can highlight what I write, provide a niche service, or publicize a cause or interest is tremendously appealing.
A ton of stuff flies by on twitter once you have more than a couple dozen follows, how do you keep track and catch the important? Lists are a good way, but that is cumbersome and there remains the scrolling through hundreds of posts. Not keeping up with literary magazines was frustrating, so I created the Literary Journal list, an open list of every journal I’ve found on twitter. I’ve added more than 80 but there are scores more. Putting them into the Paper.Li format, I was able to source beyond my list to include others as well using the simple set-up process. This brought the count in Literary Dispatch, my online newsletter, to over 200 journals. The value – many of the literary magazines I send my writing to, I find their calls for submissions via twitter. Anyone can register for an account and build and publish their own paper, free. I opted for the 9 bucks a month so I could customize and remove ads, building my own ad for No Red Pen, Writers, Writing Groups & Critique that links back to a sales site. Additional links on the page link directly back to my web site – a pretty good investment for less than ten dollars, IF Literary Dispatch gets subscribers.
Why add one more widget that demands attention and marketing? I don’t like hawking my book all the time, I’m not the independent publisher equivalent of a door to door salesperson (really, been there, done that). I’ve never liked the constant sales talk from self-employed friends who always have a sales pitch. I do like providing a service that I think meets a need, and curating the literary magazines on Twitter both helps small publications get some notice and creates a resource for finding publication venues. I think that fills a niche. The marketing advantage is advertising for my book and increased visibility. The writers looking for literary magazines are the audience intended for No Red Pen: Writers, Writing Groups & Critique. Paper.Li is a terrific means for leveraging social media like twitter and, I can source into the feed other web sites as well. Finally, there is the potential to monetize because with the pro level for $9/month I can sell the remaining ad space I don’t use for self marketing. This creates an income stream when leveraging the potential of an online newspaper fed by twitter.
If you’re an Independent Creator too – publish your online newspaper. Come on back and tell me about here.
Paper.Li is a dynamic service with hundreds of possibilities. I see great potential to move my visibility and online presence as an indie author and my book forward.
Read Molly Greene‘s Blog with guest post by Paul Dorset – Create Your Own Newsletter with Paper.Li.
Check out Literary Dispatch and subscribe.
Check out Vicki Hudson – Inditer and subscribe.
Start your own paper at Paper.Li.
Vicki Hudson 