Time to Re-assess Social Marketing

As many of my friends know, I've not been happy with the results of my years of social marketing. I spent a couple of days after I finished writing Discovery to map out what was bugging me the most, and it's that I really don't like all the shouting out to the world, "Hey! Lookie at me!" and I like it even less when all that shouting doesn't get results--i.e., book sales.

Recently, the Writers' Chat Room had discussion on blogs and what attracts readers. We all agreed that they should be entertaining and/or informative and have a unique angle. Many folks take that to be a personal approach--funny stories about their lives, etc.--but I'm not comfortable with that. Frankly, it's one thing I've been getting discontented about. I normally don't like to talk about myself (ironic, I know, but really, call me on the phone and see how I calm up), and when it comes down to it, I don't want people to buy my books because they like me, but because they like the characters.

So...what to do?

Over the next couple of months, I'll be retooling my social marketing efforts to center more around my books and my characters. I'm going to share some of my mad ideas, whether they make it into a story or not. I'll be doing character studies, world notes, favorite quotes... I'll probably keep My Novel's Journey because people do seem to like that, but I'll try to cut down on the me-me-me and concentrate more on the story or the lesson. I'm also going to start posting some serial stories, which I'll be asking for donations to support them. I'm also going to experiment with video blogging, interviewing different writers at conventions and such. Not sure how that will work. I have to play with the technology.

But you tell me: What would make this blog more interesting? How about Facebook/Twitter posts? If you are a writer, what do you do to draw readers? If you are a reader, what kind of posts convince you to take the step from blog to book purchase?