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My guest today is Elaine Powell, who writes as E.M. Powell, bestselling author of the Fifth Knight Series. The debut in this series of historical thrillers, The Fifth Knight is a take on Thomas Becket's murder in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, where a fictional fifth knight is added to the four who history relates murdered Becket. You can find out more about Elaine and her novels at the end of this post, in her bio.
My guest today is Elaine Powell, who writes as E.M. Powell, bestselling author of the Fifth Knight Series. The debut in this series of historical thrillers, The Fifth Knight is a take on Thomas Becket's murder in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, where a fictional fifth knight is added to the four who history relates murdered Becket. You can find out more about Elaine and her novels at the end of this post, in her bio.
I've got to know Elaine recently through the Historical Novel Society, as I'm in the process of setting up a social media team for the HNS; and Elaine kindly accepted when I asked if she'd be interested in managing the HNS Twitter and Facebook accounts on Mondays. Elaine really knows how to use social media, and she finds great, varied content on history and historical fiction to share on behalf of the HNS. I've been managing the HNS Twitter and Facebook accounts by myself since August 2014, and it's been wonderful to have Elaine's help over the past few weeks. We spoke on the phone when Elaine first joined the team, and when she mentioned Triberr during our conversation about other things, I asked if she'd like to write a post for this blog. I don't know much about Triberr, at all, and I'm glad Elaine accepted, with such an informative post too. I can't wait to meet Elaine 'in real life' at the upcoming UK Historical Novel Society Conference in Oxford, 2-4 September 2016, if not before! I'm Publicity Officer for the conference; and you can find out more and book here: #HNSOxford16
Thank you so much Elaine for this post, and over to you...
Growing Your Blog Audience:
Triberr for Authors, by E.M. Powell
What is Triberr?
Many people, including generous fellow authors, are great at
sharing blog posts. But getting such shares can rely on them seeing your posts
on their Twitter feed. With Triberr, it’s one distinct source of blogs that you
can see and share very easily. Triberr provide a better description than me:
Triberr is a social
network for bloggers. The idea is to find other bloggers who write about the
same topics. These writers group up in a tribe. Whenever one blogger writes a
post, the others read, comment and share it with their social networks. Triberr
does all the heavy lifting of importing everyone's latest content, aggregating
it in an easy to read news feed, and scheduling sharing throughout the day.
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| How Triberr works |
Essentially, Triberr is a reach multiplier for blogs and it
uses Twitter. So for it to work as a social media tool for you, you need to be
a blogger and be on Twitter.
Using Triberr really helps to get your blog reach up. The
last blog post I published had what I would call the usual number of Triberr
shares (7). When you add up the total of Twitter followers of those who shared
the post, it achieved a Twitter reach of 30,000 followers. It would of course
be nice if that number translated precisely into Pageviews for my blog post!
But it certainly bumped them up. And the best part is, it’s little or no extra
work.
How It Works:
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| Triberr Knowledge Base & FAQs |
Triberr provide a full menu of Knowledge Base topics etc. on
their website. But here’s my experience to add to that.
I’ve been on Triberr for a couple of years and am a member
of two Tribes: Historical Fiction Folks
and History-Writing and Reading Lovers.
Both of those are for historical fiction writers. I simply created a Triberr
account and followed those two Tribes. After I did a few shares of blog posts
written by those Tribe members, I got offered membership of those Tribes.
I also started my own Tribe last year. It’s called Historical & Otherworldly Thrills. My medieval Fifth Knight series has strong action/adventure/thriller
elements and I wanted a Tribe that reflected those as well as historical
fiction.
Once you follow/are a member of a Tribe, you will see what’s
called a Stream. This is just a list of blog posts (with links) by all members
of that Tribe. (Followers can see the Stream and share posts only). Once you
are a Member, the Stream will include any posts that you publish. Triberr
automatically picks your posts up once you have published them.
Here’s a screenshot from my Historical & Otherworldly Thrills Stream. You can see posts by
Tribe members and bloggers Charlene Newcomb and James Bicheno.
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| H&OT Tribe Screenshot |
To share a post from Triberr, you just place your cursor
over the green button and a tick will appear (don’t click!). I shared
Charlene’s and James’s posts by doing that.
The posts (usually within a few minutes) then appear as a
Tweet you have posted on your Twitter feed. It will include the Twitter handle
of the blogger. You can see my Tweet of Charlene’s post (below) in the screenshot:
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| @empowellauthor Screenshot |
And it really is that simple!
A Few Things to Note:
Triberr can be a bit flaky. You may find that your blog feed
has stopped working and so you need to go in and refresh it from time to time.
Some bloggers like to interact and chat on Triberr. None of
the Tribes I’m in do that, which is fine by me. I want Triberr to do the work
for me and not become a social media tool that requires lots of time.
You can also set up an auto share facility. I’m a bit wary
of that as I like to actually read what I’m sharing first. But lots of people
do it.
This process has to be reciprocal, otherwise it doesn’t
work.
Still interested? Here’s the link for those who want to find
out more: How does Triberr Work?
If any bloggers/Tweeps write historical thrillers, then
please feel free to come and follow Historical & Otherworldly Thrills and
see what our posts are like. We’d be delighted to be able to add more members
who are a good fit with our genre. If you’re not sure and would prefer to
enquire by e-mail, you can contact me at elaine@empowell.com.
I hope this is another tool in the social media box for some
people. Many thanks Anita for hosting this post!
You can find out more about Elaine and her novels below, with links to her website, blog, Amazon pages and social media accounts:
Book #3 in the series, The Lord of Ireland, is based on the disastrous 1185 campaign by the Lord John (youngest son of Henry II and future King of England) in Ireland. It will be published by Thomas & Mercer in March 2016.
E.M. Powell Bio:
E.M. Powell’s medieval thrillers The Fifth Knight and The
Blood of the Fifth Knight have been #1 Amazon bestsellers. Born and raised
in the Republic of Ireland into the family of Michael Collins (the legendary
revolutionary and founder of the Irish Free State), she lives in northwest
England with her husband, daughter and a Facebook-friendly dog. She blogs for
EHFA, reviews and is part of the social media team for the Historical Novel
Society, and contributes to The Big
Thrill.
Book #3 in the series, The Lord of Ireland, is based on the disastrous 1185 campaign by the Lord John (youngest son of Henry II and future King of England) in Ireland. It will be published by Thomas & Mercer in March 2016.
Links:
Blog;
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