Archive for the Twitter Category

Are We Still Using Blogs in 2016?

Posted in Armand Rosamilia, authors, Blogging, Facebook, guest blog, Twitter with tags on January 10, 2016 by Armand Rosamilia

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I used to post a lot. All the damn time, in fact. I’d average 2-3 posts and 2-3 guest posts a week. Tons of information I thought would be helpful, amusing or just something for me. I could also rely on the posts getting shared and commented on and people wanting to join in on the fun. When I started this blog way back in 2009 or thereabout, it was as a struggling part-time author trying to make the leap to full-time author who is so wealthy I never wear the same pair of socks twice. 

I’m a full-time writer but the pair of socks I have on has way too much wear for my liking. 

I podcast. Two podcasts, in fact… (shameless plug time in 3…2…1…)

Arm Cast Podcast – new episode every Friday

Arm N Toof’s Dead Time Podcast – new episode every Wednesday

Both on Project iRadio 

I get a ton of interaction when a new episode goes live. I used to post about a new episode on this very blog but no one really seemed to care enough to read it, yet I have a very strong listening base. I guess they listen but don’t read about podcasts. 

Is blogging and having a website no longer viable to reach the masses? Do we simply worry about Facebook and Twitter and the next Big Thing and keep connected there? 

Your thoughts… if anyone is actually reading this, that is…

Armand

14 Comments »

Don’t Believe Your Own Hype

Posted in #amwriting, anthology, Armand Rosamilia, authors, Blogging, dying days, Facebook, fiction, florida, Horror Writers Association, HWA, Joe McKinney, Mark Tufo, movies, personal, Pinterest, radio gig, Twitter, writing, zombie with tags , , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2014 by Armand Rosamilia

the thought process

Open letter (OK, blog post, get off my case) to Myself today from Me three years ago… 

I’m damn proud of you. It is unreal how much you’ve accomplished and how many goals you set before you and have surpassed. If you’d said three years ago you’d have over 100 releases on Amazon, worked with some great small press companies, attended World Horror and other conventions not just in Florida but in many other places, had stories published in some great anthologies with other great authors, had a couple of your story ideas turned into upcoming movies, signed a thirteen book deal with a Hollywood production company, got on the actual radio to talk and play the songs you grew up with, met the woman of your dreams and STILL own the beat-up Kia AND it still started, I’d have laughed. 

All amazing things, and a ton more you’ve accomplished in the last 36 months or so. You got away from a horrible, mind-numbing relationship filled with daily fighting, jealousy over a potential writing career and following dreams you’ve had since you were twelve years old. You set many goals and keep setting goals, and you are easily in the best place you’ve ever been in your life. 

Pat yourself on the back, smile as you sip $20 a pound Death Wish Coffee and eat expensive meals in fancy restaurants and live comfortably in a big new house watching the 55 inch TV you bought with some of your earnings over the 36 months. Pat that growing belly, filled with that expensive food and coffee, and keep smiling. 

And then…

Stop acting like a Big Shot, because you haven’t written a damn word in the last three days and your daily writing goal of 2,000 words a day is kicking your ass. When is the last time you actually hit the goal, or hit it feeling good and not just relieved you actually made it but dreading what tomorrow was going to bring?

When was the last time you actually shut Facebook off or didn’t answer an e-mail immediately? How many Pinterest and New MySpace followers do you actually need? Is breaking 70,000 Twitter followers really more important than writing today? Right now?

Remember Joe McKinney at World Horror Convention? While you drank and laughed with a bar filled with other authors, Joe was upstairs in his hotel room writing. Yep, working. Why? Because he gets it. You have a deadline, remember? Which is now getting closer and closer. 

Sure, you finished Dying Days 4. It only took you about 14 months since Dying Days 3 was released, which you swore wasn’t going to happen. God forbid you start on Dying Days 5, right? By the time that comes out Mark Tufo will be on Zombie Fallout 19. 

So… sit back and Google your name again and read another wonderful review about a release you wrote two years ago. Enjoy the praise from your many, many followers and your peers in the writing world. 

Who, if they are better than you, got that way because they don’t stop writing and doing the important things, the top three…

1. write

2. write

3. write

Now, shut up and turn off the damn internet and get in your work before you check your Amazon sales for the fifth time today. 

Armand Rosamilia

snoopy

15 Comments »

This Internet Stuff Is Forever… Usually

Posted in Armand Rosamilia, Blogging, death metal, dying days, horror, JA Konrath, personal, Twitter, wordpress, writing, zombie with tags , , , , , , on April 20, 2013 by Armand Rosamilia

This weekend, besides getting into the homestretch of the Dying Days 3 zombie novel, I’be been culling some of my favorite blog posts and interviews from this website and they will eventually all be bundled together, along with many new ones you’ve never seen, into an eBook titled Shut Up, Old Man! Random Thoughts, Posts, Interviews, Lies and Help from Armand Rosamilia. 

I’m not going to pretend to know anything, but after the last 18 months I’ve learned a few things, and I wanted to put my journey into perspective and see (for myself) how far I’ve come or haven’t come. It’s fun going back and reading posts I did a year ago, and remembering where my mindset was at that moment. And seeing how it’s changed. 

I also began pulling every interview I’ve done and putting together a sort of ‘Best Of’ interview, with every question I’ve been asked and the multiple answers I’ve given for each… so far, I talk a lot of crap. 

One thing that alarmed me, however, was the many dead links I am seeing. I have done a ton of guest blogs and interviews, and linked them to my website. However, when I click on them to find them, they are gone. Erased. Deleted. And these are websites that still exist. 

I contacted two bloggers this morning to see if maybe they changed the names or archived them, only to be told by one ‘Nah, that interview was old (it was 9 months ag0)’, and the other said ‘I only want current stuff on my blog’… 

Huh?

The greatest part of the internet is the perpetual flow of it, and the fact I’ve had new readers who found me based not on my latest Twitter post, but because they read an interview when I was first promoting Dying Days or Death Metal, and they looked me up and started reading my stuff. You never know where a reader is going to jump into your career, so you hedge the bets the more chances for them to see you the better. 

Thank about any author you’ve read. Did you see them as an up and coming writer with their first book, or maybe jumped in when they got a buzz from people you trusted on the third book? I’ve stumbled across great interviews with authors and wanted to dive in and see if they were any good. 

Keeping an interview or guest post on your website doesn’t hurt anyone, especially you. I have hundreds of posts and things on my site, and I’m using about 3% of what they gave me. For free. Unless you are running crazy apps or tons of video, that isn’t a valid excuse for deleting stuff. There’s a blogger I really like on a personal level, but won’t send him my guest blogs anymore, because he takes posts down after two months. I have yet to see what the point is. I wrote a tongue-in-cheek post titled “JA Konrath Is The Devil”, and it still finds its way into my top five posts each week, no matter what. It’s been out for months, but people still find it and follow my blog and keep coming back to read more and more. 

By some folk’s reckoning, I should have deleted it months ago and only posted ‘relevant’ things… well, guess what? If an interview or guest post talking about an old book still in print  helps me find even one more reader and gives them another reason to read your blog and maybe like your own work, I say it is more than relevant. 

Armand

4 Comments »

Reblog: Armand Rosamilia Interview on The Fifth Dimension blog

Posted in #amwriting, Armand Rosamilia, authors, dying days, Facebook, guest blog, horror, interview, movies, short story, thriller, Tool Shed, Twitter, writing, zombie on March 16, 2013 by Armand Rosamilia

It was a real pleasure to be interviewed by Stuart Anderson on his blog, asking some interesting and focused questions. Check it out! 

http://stuart66.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/an-interview-with-horror-author-armand.html

THREEDYINGDAYS

2 Comments »

Writer’s Block? Nope. Too Many Distractions.

Posted in #amwriting, Armand Rosamilia, Blogging, Facebook, horror, personal, Tool Shed, Twitter, wordpress, writing on March 16, 2013 by Armand Rosamilia

I don’t believe in Writer’s Block. I believe you can always sit down and write something. There is always more than enough ideas to put down on the computer screen, even if they are crappy ideas… 

There’s a great analogy I use from time to time about farmers. Do they get up in the morning, look outside at the fields and decide they have Farmer’s Block today, and go back to bed? I doubt it. They get on that horse (see what I did there?) and they do the job. 

As writers, we have to do it as well. My backup plan is to always have several projects going at once, in varied points of being finished. I always know the pecking order of them, especially if there is an actual publisher deadline associated with one of more. I work on the main story, but if I get lost or I’m not feeling it, I move onto something else. The bottom line is for me to write my 2,000 word a day goal and feel good by the time I go to sleep.

Of course, I don’t always hit my mark. Last week, faced with a severe deadline since I slacked so bad, I wrote 20,000 words (of a 40,000 word story) in three glorious days. I turned off the internet, ignored Facebook and twitter and e-mails, and just wrote. For hours. 

But that is not the norm. I wish it was. I see authors (notice I didn’t say writers) who set 5,000 word goals and/or 8 hour writing days, and they hit it like clockwork. They are professionals and they are building their career one word at a time. 

I feel like a fake half the time, even though I technically do this for a living (just don’t look too closely at where I live, what I drive, and how I finagle to pay some bills), and I put my head down some nights and know I could have done more. 

Social media is a necessary evil, but does endless hours on Twitter really sell more books for me? The smart part of my thinking knows I might sell an extra book or two a week by posting and commenting for 10 hours a week. The really smart part knows I could be writing an extra 10,000 words in the same period of time and getting that much closer to another release, and another potential way for readers to find my work, love it and then buy my back-list of titles. 

Factor in people talking to me, food all around me, radio and TV, and tons of blogs I just have to read… I waste about 6 hours a day on non-writing stuff. 6 hours! That would be quite a few extra words to write, and more projects done, and more chances to sell things, and…

Yet, I know it won’t happen with any real frequency. Sigh.

At least I know I don’t have Writer’s Block. There is that, right? 

Buy this book so I can retire, too… just sayin’ 

TOOL  SHED

ToolShed

5 Comments »

February 68k Writing Challenge for Armand

Posted in #amwriting, Armand Rosamilia, Cthulhu, dying days, Facebook, horror, Keyport Cthulhu, novella, submissions, Twitter, wordpress, writing, zombie on January 28, 2013 by Armand Rosamilia

It’s not really a challenge but it sounds cooler in the title, right?

I’ve been contracted for not one… not two… but three! Count ’em, three! new stories to write. I can’t tell you the details and can’t really tell you much more (what a damn tease I am), but I can say they are going to be two 14,000 word and a 40,000 word novella.

Since my math skills are super-sharp (and there is a cute calculator feature on this laptop) it comes to 68,000 words in 28 days… which comes to 2,428 words a day to get everything written (first draft) and submitted on March 1st.

Wish me luck!

The downside to getting it is the back-burner status of all the other projects I was working on, like Dying Days 3, Dying Days: Origins, the next two stories in the Keyport Cthulhu series, and another hundred things.

But I’ll eventually get to them, and get in a few pages here and there when I have time.

Until then… don’t expect a ton of Mando on social media, since I need to really buckle down and write, write, write…

Armand

5 Comments »

Authors I Like Professionally and Personally

Posted in authors, Cthulhu, horror, personal, Southern Hauntings Saga, Twitter, writing on August 18, 2012 by Armand Rosamilia

I know I haven’t been around much this week… sometimes your personal life gets in the way. My personal life is like an eighteen wheeler that locked up the brakes and is thundering down the highway at me, fish-tailing… and I’m not exaggerating.

I’m trying to remain positive and decided to spread some of that by doing a quick post about some of my favorite authors in the indie scene, ones I like both their work and their personalities as well. This isn’t a fluff list. There are quite a few people I am friendly with on social media that I’m not a fan of their work, or I love their stories but they have zero personality. Simple enough. So… in no particular order:

1. Bryan Hall and his marvelous Southern Hauntings Saga series, currently getting the royalty treatment from Angelic Knight Press… find him on Facebook (but the dude doesn’t have a Twitter account… odd)

I recommend: The Girl

2. Tim Baker writes thrillers set in Palm Coast Florida, where I currently reside. We met by chance and have become fast friends. Thankfully, the dude can write a great rollercoaster crime/suspense/thriller/funny book.

I recommend: Pump It Up

3. Vincent Hobbes (don’t call him Vinnie) is one of those cooler than shit writers (scruffy beard, mirror sunglasses) you’d think was an extra in The Big Lebowski… but he’s actually a great author.

I recommend: THEY

4. Jeffrey Kosh is not only a great writer but a great cover artist as well (check out my own Keyport Cthulhu series, which Jeffrey does!) and I always look forward to his next story.

I recommend: Dead Men Tell No Tales

5. Allison M. Dickson is a prolific writer, and her body of work covers many genres and subgenres, but everything I’ve ever read from her is wonderful. Seriously. I always look forward to seeing what’s next.

I reccomend: Dust

*   *   *   *   *

I might make this a weekly or occasional feature if I get responses to it, showcasing five of my favorite indie authors currently out there.

12 Comments »

Want To Promote Fellow Horror/Thriller Authors

Posted in Blogging, guest blog, horror, Twitter, wordpress, writing on August 2, 2012 by Armand Rosamilia

Yep, pretty simple. It won’t be some big, convoluted blog tour thing or a set day in mind, or just promoting the authors I am buddies with. I just want to give back. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a ton of great authors and bloggers over the years, and I love doing interviews and writing guest blogs and getting my name out there.

I decided, on a whim today, to give back a bit. I posted on Twitter:

If you are a #horror or #thriller #author I’d love to run a guest blog from you on my site. Because I like to help. DM me.

And the messages are rolling in, so I decided to post a quick word about it here. I’m looking for a roughly 500-word guest post about your latest release, or how you became a writer, or what you love about horror, or anything else you feel like talking about. That’s it. I’ll run it with your author photo, book covers, and links if you add them at the end of the guest blog. That’s it.

I’m not doing this to add my own book links in it or expect you to talk about me or my blog. In fact, I welcome authors I’ve never met before or had contact with to send me something. I’d love to expand on who I talk with and hopefully help everyone, without making this a huge deal and do a hundred or more posts… although, if that many come in, at least I know I’ll have more than enough posts for the blog, right?

Oh, and there will be a great one up tomorrow (see how fast this works?) by none other than my good buddy Todd Brown, the great zombie author.

16 Comments »

Pinterest: What Am I Supposed To Do Again?

Posted in Facebook, personal, Pinterest, Twitter, wordpress on August 2, 2012 by Armand Rosamilia

I joined Pinterest a few months ago, since I felt obligated… I join every social media outlet in the fear that if I don’t I will miss something truly important or they’ll suddenly close the gates to the site and only the cool kids will be allowed on that side of the fence.

When MySpace (I’ll explain what that was in another blog post) was all the rage, I had 184,000+ friends on my Carnifex Metal account. I had four accounts on there, and probably had over a quarter of a million close, personal friends. It helped me sell a ton of Metal Queens books but then simply died away.

I’m iffy when it comes to Facebook. As an author, I want (and need) to use social media to help me sell books. Facebook doesn’t do that. Ever. I don’t know anyone who says ‘I need a new read, let me go and surf through an endless stream of people posting links to their new book’. No, you go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble for that. Unfortunately, most people go to Facebook to see funny cat pictures. Won’t you join me? Armand on Facebook

Twitter is my current addiction. It’s really bad right now. I have index cards filled out, charting how many followers I get each day and how many overnight add me… it’s getting ridiculous. I’m averaging 188 new followers per day this week, and will break 15,000 followers by the end of the weekend. Sad. Watch as my followers grow on Twitter

Now, onto Pinterest.

I’ve been dutifully and obsessively adding random people, which seem to be mostly women. I have 729 followers and I’m following 2,779 myself. No idea if that is good, bad, or what it even means.

I added boards with my books on it, and then a few with my own personality: the Red Sox, comic books, Heavy Metal, New Jersey, steampunk, shapes of women I like… now what?

So, here’s the big question… do I keep on this path of adding more and more people and boards and hope I figure it out, or give up on it, or do something different with it? Does anyone know what any of it even means? Oh, and here’s my Pinterest

13 Comments »

Twitter Etiquette, Book Promotion & the Narcissist Inversion

Posted in Blogging, guest blog, Twitter, writing on July 28, 2012 by Armand Rosamilia

Twitter Etiquette, Book Promotion & the Narcissist Inversion.

Another good post about Twitter Etiquette and respect, this time by Robert Chazz Chute

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The Five Mistakes Killing Self-Published Authors

Posted in Blogging, personal, Twitter, Uncategorized, wordpress, writing on July 23, 2012 by Armand Rosamilia

The Five Mistakes Killing Self-Published Authors.

Yet another great blog post from Kristen Lamb!

4 Comments »

Twitter Respect

Posted in Blogging, FREE eBook, Giveaways, guest blog, horror, interview, personal, Twitter, wordpress, writing on July 20, 2012 by Armand Rosamilia

I’m here today to share a point or six (maybe more, who knows) about Twitter Respect. Simply put, things I find socially unacceptable when being my friend on Twitter. Your ideas might be different, and you might disagree with me. But right now, in the immortal words of Robbie from The Wedding Singer… Well, I have a microphone, and you don’t, SO YOU WILL LISTEN TO EVERY DAMN WORD I HAVE TO SAY!

Incidentally, in a post a couple of days ago I freely quoted (without proper credit) The Blues Brothers, but no one seemed to comment on it. For shame. All of you. Now, back to my Twitter Respect Ranting…

1. What is the damn point of following a million people that don’t care about you at all? The ‘follow me and I’ll follow you for an hour before I delete you and then try to get all your friends to follow me’ thing is stupid. I don’t see the point.

2. If you don’t follow me back within a reasonable amount of time (usually four weeks) I unfollow you, unless you are Neil Gaiman or JA Konrath or someone really cool that I read their tweets all the time. But, the real problem I have is that then you post that I unfollowed you… not sure why you do this. Hey, here’s a fun thing: follow me back to begin with, and I won’t have to delete you. And you won’t have to point out that you only bothered with me once I cut you off.

3. Not sure why, but DMs from people I don’t know are annoying. Oh, wait, I remember now: It’s because I try to be nice when you say ‘Thanks for the follow! Nice to meet you’ and I reply in kind, only to be told by Twitter than you don’t follow me so I can’t send it and I wasted my time! Guess what? You get unfollowed quicker than 30 days. Just sayin’.

4. I also hate initial DMs that give me a link to your website/Amazon page/free eBook giveaway… I can’t imagine this works for anyone trying to promote themselves and gets someone excited enough to say ‘Wow, thanks for the private spam! I am going to buy your book right now!’. How about saying hello, and then we can be nice first before you shove your work down my throat… and I can actually say nice things back since you also follow me. I promote my own work every day, but it’s drowned in with reblogs of cool posts I read, RT’s of other cool books I like and tweets to people that I converse with like a normal human being.

5. Posting your link for your book/band/website/crap using my twitter handle as a way to get people to notice you, since you have 147 followers and I (currently at 12:13 am when I’m writing this) have 12,867, all (OK, most) of which I earned by being nice and not beating them over the head with promotions for my work. I keep getting the ‘@ArmandAuthor: My character in my new book is a bad man. Here’s the link to the book on Amazon’, even though I never said a word to you before this, and when I check your Twitter page I see you sent the same message to 56 other people in the last 34 minutes. ‘Hope you buy my book!’. Not gonna happen. Unfollow.

6. I love when people RT my posts and my blog posts, and ask questions, comment, act silly, and just friendly. There is nothing cooler than people responding, playing along or just being normal. Yet, I’ve actually had people upset because I reblogged their stuff and it went out to 12,000+ Twitter followers but I didn’t say it was from them… uh, they clicked on your website, I liked your post enough to share it with 100 times the amount of people it would have normally gotten eyes on… keep complaining, sorry. I’m wrong. It won’t happen again. To your posts, trust me. For the people who reblog my stuff and love when I reblog their stuff… thank you. I like you. You get the implications of social media and the fact that I liked your post enough to want to share it with my friends. Keep writing cool posts about your writing, cool interviews, cool Metal bands, zombies, steampunk and horror stuff and I will keep promoting you, because I like it and want to spread the word about the cool kids.

7. And seven, seven for no tomorrow

8. And eight, eight, I forget what eight was for

9. But nine, nine, nine for the lost gods

10. ten, ten, ten, ten for everything, everything, everything…

Please let someone know what that last part is from… I’m begging you..

This is my tongue firmly planted in cheek (but mostly true) rant against no Twitter Respect. I’m sure I missed a few things and I hope to meet you along the journey and actually get a chance to chat with you. In 140 characters or less.

Now buy my book(s).

20 Comments »

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