It’s funny how things come full circle. Many, many literary years ago, I interviewed Yvonne Pierre for my “JoeyPinkney.com 5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Author Interview Series. Late last year, 2017, Yvonne contacted me to see if I would be a part of the author interview series for “Writer’s Fuel.”

Below is an excerpt of the interview followed by a link to the full interview. I had a great time talking about things that authors do to propel themselves forward or self-sabotage them. Enjoy, share, leave a comment. I look forward to your feedback.

Joey Pinkney promotes literature using social media. His book promotion service JoeyTweets.com uses Twitter, and other popular social media websites, to gain more exposure for authors and their books using his huge digital footprint.

Before offering the JoeyTweets service, Joey Pinkney conducted numerous author interviews and book reviews on his website JoeyPinkney.com. Pinkney also strives to push his creative boundaries by crafting compelling short stories. In 2015, he decided to publish standalone short stories on a more regular basis.

Joey Pinkney’s fast fiction reflects his quirky sense of humor and his attention to layered details. He produces tales that his readers consider to be offbeat, yet familiar. More about his book and writings can be found at JoeysPen.com. His stories, in part, are fueled by chocolate.

YVONNE PIERRE:  You’ve been offering promotional services for several years.  What inspired you to help authors promote their books?

JOEY PINKNEY:  I was inspired by my love for books and my respect for the process of getting a book into the market. There are many authors out there, no doubt. But, for every author a reader might know about, there are fifteen who are waiting to be discovered and grow a readership.

I wanted to bridge the gap between authors and readers looking for their next reading adventure. This was in the late 1990s, early 2000s. Back then the Internet was starting to gain traction, and social media was in its infancy. I started out by writing reviews for other companies before settling down to write professional reviews on behalf of myself. As things grew and progressed, I added author interviews and social media promotion to the mix.

Book Promotion has come a long way since the MySpace days.

YVONNE:  You seemed to have mastered using social media for promotion.  You’ve written a book, “8 Simple Twitter Tip for Authors: A Short Guide to Long Results,” what would you say are the biggest mistakes authors make when self-promoting their book?

JOEY:  Best Practices for using social media for promotion is always in flux. There are a few tried and true techniques, then there are the new ways to flesh out old strategies. Being an active learner has really helped me stay relevant in this field.

One of the biggest mistakes an author can make when self-promoting is spamming in its many forms. Spamming is when you either send an unsolicited message to a large group of people and/or when you send a message, over and over again, indiscriminately to random people.

Read more of the Writer’s Fuel interview at: http://writers-fuel.com/blog/2018/01/20/interview-with-joey-pinkney/