Archive for the Twitter Category
Are We Still Using Blogs in 2016?
Posted in Armand Rosamilia, authors, Blogging, Facebook, guest blog, Twitter with tags armand rosamilia on January 10, 2016 by Armand Rosamilia
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
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 armand rosamilia, author, authors, dying days, fiction, florida, horror, joe mckinney, Mark Tufo, writing on May 27, 2014 by Armand Rosamilia
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
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 RosamiliaIt 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
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 RosamiliaI 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’
Want To Promote Fellow Horror/Thriller Authors
Posted in Blogging, guest blog, horror, Twitter, wordpress, writing on August 2, 2012 by Armand RosamiliaYep, 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.
Pinterest: What Am I Supposed To Do Again?
Posted in Facebook, personal, Pinterest, Twitter, wordpress on August 2, 2012 by Armand RosamiliaI 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
Twitter Etiquette, Book Promotion & the Narcissist Inversion
Posted in Blogging, guest blog, Twitter, writing on July 28, 2012 by Armand RosamiliaTwitter Etiquette, Book Promotion & the Narcissist Inversion.
Another good post about Twitter Etiquette and respect, this time by Robert Chazz Chute
