Quick Link: The Power of Instagram – Marketing Tips for Indie Authors

January 1, 2017January 1, 2017 by Publetariat

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Social media has to be a part of your marketing plan. But there are so many options and each option is not the same in terms of reaching new fans. Today’s offering by Penny Sansevieri at Writers In The Storm discusses how to use Instagram. Instagram is great, especially if you are looking to reach adults 18 – 30 ish.

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The Power of Instagram – Marketing Tips for Indie Authors

By Penny Sansevieri

Instagram has seen staggering growth since Facebook purchased it. And every day, more authors are beginning to use it, with great success, to engage their readers, build their fan base, and sell books. And here’s why:

First, it’s simple to use. Second, it’s not nearly as ad-driven (yet) as Facebook, despite being owned by them. Third, Instagram is visually-driven, so it’s much easier to engage someone than it is on Facebook. Plus, it drives far high per-follower engagement than Facebook or Twitter, 58 times and 120 times more respectively.

Anyone can create an Instagram account, and there’s lots of information available on how to do so. So I’m going to go beyond the obvious tips like adding a good profile picture, and remembering to add your bio and your site URL. This is certainly important, but it’s not going to drive goal conversion (namely building followers and selling books) to the level that most indie authors prefer. So I’ve pulled together some tips on how to develop innovative Instagram marketing for whatever it is you’re promoting.

Read the full post on Writers In The Storm

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

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Quick Link: Selling Books on Social Media: 4 Steps to Less Wasted Time

December 13, 2016 by Publetariat

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Want some help getting your social media responsibilities under control? (This is coming from someone who just spent way to much time on Pinterest.) Chris Syme has some great tips on how to make the most of your social media marketing over at Anne R. Allen’s Blog.. With Ruth Harris.

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Selling Books on Social Media: 4 Steps to Less Wasted Time

by Chris Syme

A mind-boggling 78 percent of Americans have a social media profile. And a little over half of them are on more than one channel. It is a given that authors can develop loyal audiences and sell more books with the help of social media. But how many social media channels are enough?

Even though it may be true that you have potential readers on every social media channel, it is a waste of your time and resources to try to connect with people everywhere. As the emphasis in social media marketing switches from number of fans (reach) to connecting and building loyal fans (engagement), it’s time to build a social media strategy around developing a troop of engaged followers that will help carry your valuable content to their friends.

It’s time to learn how to get more engagement with less social media.

Four Steps to Less Wasted Social Media Time

There are four key steps to building this new less is more strategy with social media marketing: find your audience, designate your primary channel, build your outpost channels, and upgrade your content quality. Before we dig into the four steps, let me define the terms primary channel and outpost channel.

What is a Primary Channel?

Read the full post on Anne R. Allen’s Blog.. With Ruth Harris

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Quick Links: How Goodreads Can Help Writers Grow Their Readership

October 23, 2016 by Publetariat

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Every author knows that social media is important in the hunt to find readers. But how much time have you been spending on Goodreads? If you are like me, you pop in occasionally when you remember or need to do something. Frances Caballo at Live, Write, Thrive presents her case on why you should spend more of your social media time on Goodreads and the benefits thereof.

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How Goodreads Can Help Writers Grow Their Readership

July 1, 2016

Today’s post is by social media expert Frances Caballo:

Goodreads has become the most important networking site on the Internet.
—Forbes

Goodreads has a storied beginning. This is how founder and CEO Otis Chandler describes his epiphany to start what has become a powerful online reader resource and social media network:

One afternoon while I was scanning a friend’s bookshelf for ideas, it struck me: when I want to know what books to read, I’d rather turn to a friend than any random person or bestseller list.

So I decided to build a website—a place where I could see my friends’ bookshelves and learn about what they thought of all their books.

And thus in January of 2007, Goodreads began.

The Goodreads of Today

As of January 2016, Goodreads had 40 million members and featured 1.3 billion books and 47 million reviews.

What I find interesting is that many Goodreads users attended college, and even more of them attended graduate school. Goodreads members are educated, love to read, and love to talk about books. Women read more and review more books than men and dominate this online venue. While men aren’t as active on this site as women, they still participate and are a growing force here.

Authors and Goodreads

Many authors join Goodreads and quickly set up their author dashboards. Then perhaps they want to set up a giveaway. What do they do next? Well, a lot of authors I know then start to neglect Goodreads when the giveaway ends.

Too many writers don’t understand the benefits of maintaining a presence, reviewing books, adding favorite quotes, or joining groups.

Some writers neglect Goodreads to their detriment.

Read the full post on Live, Write, Thrive

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Quick Links: When Less Is More on Social Media

September 25, 2016 by Publetariat

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

I don’t know about you, but I am totally overwhelmed with dealing with social media. It takes time to really connect and do justice to the people who are wonderful enough to engage with you. So when I read Jane Friedman‘s post on managing social media, I knew I wasn’t the only one. It has some great tips!

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When Less Is More on Social Media

Too much social media can be overwhelming

June 22, 2016 by Chris Syme

Today’s guest post is from social media expert Chris Syme (@cksyme). Learn about her June master class.

Social media boasts some pretty staggering numbers: nearly two-thirds of American adults use social media. And 70 percent of those users ages thirteen and up are on Facebook, according to the Pew Research Center.

Authors feel the steady pressure to be on social media channels promoting themselves, promoting their books, and searching for those ever-elusive readers. Some marketers tout it like it’s a magic pill, encouraging authors to be in every possible corner of the social media universe. After all, you don’t want to miss anybody, right?

The trouble with this advice is that it is antithetical to the present marketing culture. Marketing in this day and age is not about casting a wide net to get all the fish. It’s about knowing who your audience is, understanding where the best spots to find them are, and going narrow with the best channels for optimum results. If you want maximum results from your social media channels, less is more.

Fewer Channels Means More Engagement
I have long been an advocate of being on fewer social media channels to maximize engagement. There are several reasons for that, but I’ll give you the main three:

Finding where your audience members spend the most time makes it easier to target them.
Spending time on channels that grab less than 25 percent of the users online is a waste unless it is a niche channel specific to your audience.
Every channel is not conducive to selling. Choose channels where you can engage and sell.

Read the full post on Jane Friedman

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Quick Links: How Authors Can Get More Fans and Book Sales with Less Social Media

September 8, 2016September 8, 2016 by Publetariat

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

You know you need social media as part of your overall marketing strategy, but there are so many different types of platforms. There just isn’t enough time in the day to really utilize them all. At Digital Book World, Chris Syme helps you to use your social media time wisely.

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How Authors Can Get More Fans and Book Sales with Less Social Media

By: Chris Syme

June 20, 2016

My brain on social media — Social Media is NOT Pokemon. You don’t need to catch them all!

Expert publishing blog opinions are solely those of the blogger and not necessarily endorsed by DBW.

A mind-boggling 78 percent of Americans have a social media profile. According to Statista, 2.72 billion people will be social media users worldwide by 2019.

It is a given that authors can develop loyal audiences and sell more books with the help of social media. But as numbers of users rise, the pressure to “be on every channel” also rises, as authors succumb to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

Even though it may be true that you have potential readers on every social media channel, it may be a waste of your time and resources to try to connect with people everywhere.

It’s Not About Numbers Anymore. It’s About Engagement

Internet users have an average of five social media accounts (Global Web Index), but they do not engage on them equally or use them for the same purpose. Numbers do give us information about social media, but numbers can be deceiving, as their meaning can shift with time. For example:

• In the pre-algorithm world of 2011, the race was on to build up as many fans on social media as possible. The more followers you had, the more people would see your content, as Facebook was yet to become the first social media channel to institute an engagement-choking algorithm.
• In 2016, numbers are a function of baseline reach as they have always been. But today, three of the major five platforms (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) have engagement algorithms that restrict reach. Because of the sheer volume of online information, users have cried out for a better way to see the information that’s important to them. The result: constricting engagement algorithms. Today, your fan and follower numbers are only a baseline. The effectiveness of your content to get fans to like, share, comment and click will determine how many people actually see your content.

Read the full post on Digital Book World

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Quick Links: Twitter For Writers – More Proof That It Works – Updated

July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 by Publetariat

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

With only being allowed 140 characters, many writers put their social energy into other areas than Twitter. But Twitter can be a great way to meet other writers, find out great resources, and yes – even sell books. At BooksGoSocial Book Marketing Blog, Laurence O’Bryan goes into great detail on how to use Twitter and what tools are available to help manage your Twitter accounts.

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Twitter For Writers – More Proof That It Works – Updated

May 23, 2016

Laurence O’Bryan

Twitter has hundreds of millions of daily users worldwide. It is both a way to engage one to one with people and a way to broadcast information. Writers use it every day for both. Search for #amwriting on Twitter and you will see some of the activity writers are engaging in on Twitter. Some of it is broadcasting. Some of it is looking for engagement.

If you use it consistently you will get noticed. It’s not a magic wand, but it does reach readers.

Twitter sells books too. On this page you will see actual Tweets from real people who have bought books because of Tweets, and a table showing thousands of people going to book pages on Amazon as a result of book promotion Tweets, all tracked by an independent hit tracking service. You can also see other comments at the bottom of this post from people whose books sold more because they were Tweeted about.

There’s a lot of misinformation around about the value of Twitter for writers. Much of it is written by writers who struggle with how to use Twitter effectively. Often it’s assumed that one or two Tweets to your followers is enough and that if that approach fails, it’s because Twitter isn’t effective at selling books. That adage about workmen blaming their tools comes to mind.

Read the full post on BooksGoSocial Book Marketing Blog

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Quick Links: How to Create a Monthly Social Media Calendar

July 6, 2016July 6, 2016 by Publetariat

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Social media is key in connecting with readers and helping them to find your book. But each social media outlet you add increases the time needed to manage it, as well as adding one more thing to track. Angelina M. Lopez posts at Writers in the Storm on how to tame the social media beasts with an organized monthly calendar.

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How to Create a Monthly Social Media Calendar

May 25th, 2016

Angelina M. Lopez

You’ve hit that mid-year lull, haven’t you? That time when, instead of creating social media posts with an objective, you’re posting a lot of cat videos. Instead of planning goal-oriented posts that express your personality, appeal to your fans, and move you closer to your business goals, you’re re-sharing the tired memes from your friend’s feed.

It’s all right. The annual social media calendar we created in January can get a little dusty midway through the year. Today, we’ll clean that calendar off and give it new life in your monthly social media calendar. A monthly social media calendar allows you to know what you’re going to post EVERY DAY!! It helps you balance promotional posts with fun and personal ones, it insures you’re talking about themes and topics important to you and your audience, and it focuses you so that your social media posts are moving you toward your goals.

And the time investment for this ease and focus? Only about two hours at the end of each month. Here’s how to build your own monthly social media calendar:

Step 1: Write down your list of topics from your annual social media calendar.

Read the full post on Writers in the Storm

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Quick Link: Which Social Media Channel Sells The Most Books?

May 19, 2016 by Publetariat

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

If you are an author, you know the importance of social media. Especially when it comes time to try and generate exposure and sales for your books. So this article from Rachel Thompson on Bad Redhead Media will be of interest to you. She breaks down the different social media options and gives a few hints too.

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Which Social Media Channel Sells The Most Books?

May 4, 2016

By Rachel Thompson

“Which one social media channel will net me the most book sales?” an author asked me recently during my new weekly #BookMarketingChat (join any Wednesday on Twitter, 6pm pst/9pm est simply by typing in the hashtag).

Well, it’s not that easy. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just go to say, Facebook because that’s the EASY button, and violá! They will come, we will sell, and yacht-life, here we come. Alas, it just doesn’t work that way because well, a few reasons.

Let’s deconstruct.

YouTube:

Across the board, YouTube has the highest conversions and the all-important measure, purchases. Yet, how many authors do you know (including myself) who utilize YouTube? And of those who do, how many are gaining the bulk of their sales from YouTube? Probably not a lot, with of course, the occasional notable exception like John Green.

Facebook:

No surprise here, given that 1.6 billion people use Facebook, worldwide. What this means for authors is that somewhere in that mix is your demographic. In fact, Facebook was the first social network to surpass 1 billion monthly active users (Source: Statista.com).

How do you find readers? That’s the tricky part, as we are not allowed to use our personal accounts for financial gain (yea, we all agreed to that when we signed up for our accounts), so we have to reach our readers via an author page — tricky, Facebook, tricky — and the only way to get people over to our page is to pay to boost posts, or promote our page — aka, advertising. Still, I love interacting with people on a personal level, which is what the personal account is for, not ‘selling,’ so there’s that.

Use your author page to sell and interact, your personal account to build relationships. Keep the two separate. If you don’t, you risk Facebook shutting down your account (and believe me, it happens ALL.THE.TIME.).

Read the full post on Bad Redhead Media

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Quick Link: The Pros and Cons of Using a Facebook Profile But Not an Official Page

March 29, 2016 by Publetariat

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Continuing to dig deeper into social media, specifically Facebook, what do you do if you already have a personal Facebook page. Do you use it as your author page as well? Or would it be better to create a separate “business” page? On her site, Jane Friedman talks about her experiences and the solution she finally arrived at. What have you done? I struggle with the same issue for a future Publetariat Facebook page. It could be a lovely way to connect. But it is also like a puppy, you think you want one but once you have it you have to feed it and clean up after it.

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The Pros and Cons of Using a Facebook Profile But Not an Official Page

March 24, 2016

by Jane Friedman

One of the first marketing tasks given to authors by agents, publishers, and publicists is: Start an official Facebook page.

So far, I have not done this for myself. Instead, I use my Facebook profile with the “following” function turned on. That means I have private friends, but also public followers.

I want to discuss the pros and cons of this choice, but first I’ll describe the history of my experience and how I ended up in this situation to begin with. (Scroll down to the pros and cons if you’re impatient.)

2006–2009: “Real” Friends Only

I joined Facebook in 2006. At first, I only friended people I knew well and had met in person—and I rarely received requests from strangers. These were the days (hard to imagine now) when few people used the site.

As I started speaking and meeting writers at conferences, and especially once I started blogging, I tentatively started friending people I had virtual relationships with, but had not met. It felt a little dirty, because at that time, Facebook used to ask for confirmation on how you knew someone, and if you couldn’t verify it, you received an informal reprimand.

Then I noticed that some of my colleagues with even more liberal friend policies had engaged communities of people around them, and valuable discussions were happening in the comments. So I decided to open the door to anyone who asked. (At this point in the game, Facebook didn’t offer a way for people to “follow” you.)

2009-2011: Everyone’s a Friend!

My Facebook use has been fairly conservative when it comes to the private details of my life. Probably the most personal things I share are travel photos and cat pics.

Read the full post on Jane Friedman

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Quick Link: 20 Fresh Social Media Tips for Authors

March 29, 2016 by Publetariat

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

A hodgepodge of assorted tips to help you max out your social media reach brought to you by Shayla Eaton and the Curiouser Editing website. Please share any hints you have with hacking social media in the comments below. Mine is to figure out which social media platforms are right for you and focus your attention on one or two of the big ones.

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Pin posts to Twitter, your Facebook page, and your Facebook group (you do have your own Facebook group, right? Because I’ve only been preaching about this for a million years, give or take). Ensure the pinned post has some type of opt-in for a freebie so they’ll subscribe to your emails. If you’re pinning a post, then it should tell them to do something.
Add emojis to your Instagram bio to catch attention. I like to use the pointing finger right above my freebie opt-in so that it’s the first thing they’re directed to. Use emojis in your posts too!
Update your LinkedIn title with stronger keywords. Your title shouldn’t say, “Jane Doe, Author.” It should say, “Jane Doe, Romance Author of [Title], Part-Time Nurse, Full-Time Mother, Oil Painter.” For example, mine says, “President of Curiouser Editing, Author of the Pre-Publishing Checklist, Editor, Writer, and Coach.” If you need more help with LinkedIn, I highly recommend The Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn for Business.
Like as many Instagram photos as you can under relevant hashtags (#bookstagram, #bookish, #indieauthor, #writercommunity, #writerlife, #bibliophile, #amwriting, #amreading) to gain more followers. I like to time myself for ten minutes so that I’m not spending a ton of time on it, but I’m still seeing results.
Use the WordSwag app to create visually appealing photos with text for Instagram (or Twitter/Facebook). Foundr Magazine swears by this in their freebie PDF, How to Get Your First 10,000 Instagram Followers.

Read the full post on Curiouser Editing

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Editor’s Desk: Kindle Instant Previews – Allow readers to preview your book on your site. Plus FREE book giveaway!

March 3, 2016March 3, 2016 by Publetariat

You may have used Amazon’s previewer tool in the past, where you were able to embed a preview link on your website or blog post. If you had, you will have realized that the widget was starting to show it’s age, didn’t always work the way it was suppose to, or at all.

That has all changed.

Amazon has updated its Kindle Instant Preview tool and it is wonderful. See below for a sample.

BookGorilla is giving away 50 free copies of

Rock with Wings

by Anne Hillerman!

Click here to enter for your chance to win!

~~Normally $9.99~~

On sale now $0.99

Beautiful, right?

covers_example There is so much to love. The look has been updated and the embed is mobile ready. Now, people can easily share your book! Add your Amazon affiliate ID during set up, and when they do share your preview, your affiliate link goes along with it. All while on your author site.

At the top of the embed you have the “Buy” button which opens a new window on Amazon to purchase the book. The “Share” button allows people to either email your preview, post on Facebook, or tweet on Twitter. They even have a short link that can be shared anywhere, which includes your affiliate link. The bottom section lets you know how much of the free sample is left and will allow you to adjust the font size. Very helpful for small screens! On computer or tablets, if you click on the “Preview” link, the sample is opened as the same size as the image. However, if you click on the text, it will toggle the bottom options and allow you to view the sample full screen.

Amazon_reader_3 The best part is that Amazon has made this so very easy to set up. First find your book on Amazon. On the right side of the screen, by the share buttons is the <embed> link. Click on that embed link and customize. You have a choice to create a link that will go to the opened preview pane on Amazon, or the ability to “Embed on your site (HTML)”. Here is where you add your Amazon affiliate tag, and make other customizations such as the size of the image.

Not every book may be available, but so far I haven’t found one that isn’t. If you are already selling the your book(s) directly yourself, this may not be an ideal option for you. But for many authors, the pain of having to deal with setting up a store to deal with purchases makes this a wonderful alternative. See Amazon for more details.

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The Most Super-Duper, Exhaustive, Comprehensive, and Current Listing of Free and Paid Book Advertising Websites and Ideas

January 3, 2016November 24, 2015 by Publetariat

Today’s post is by Ana Spoke, off of her site AnaSpoke.com on October 8, 2015. Ana gives a pretty decent list of marketing options that she has tried or researched. Full disclosure, as a Freelance Software Engineer I do work for Windwalker Media as a General Manger.

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The Most Super-Duper, Exhaustive, Comprehensive, and Current Listing of Free and Paid Book Advertising Websites and Ideas

Hi, everyone,

As mentioned in the previous post, I have found the hard way that advertising books on social media is not a very good or even a decent marketing strategy, if it is, in fact, your one and only strategy. As an update, I have to let you know that it does work, though – I have ignored Twitter for a few days last week in the wake of this realisation, and my book sales dropped from an average of 11 per week to 3. Not a huge difference in numbers, but let’s express it in percentage points…OH MY GOD, I’VE LOST 75% OF SALES! Sorry for yelling, but you get my point, right? Keep working at social media, but do consider doing what the pros have always done – broadcast to unsuspecting masses.

I hope I can help by sharing this list of book marketing sites and ideas with you. I intend for it to be a continuous work in progress – I plan to update it as I go and then reblog once I have something super exciting to report. Even if you don’t want to advertise a book, the sites below are excellent resources to find free or bargain-priced books. Marketing Mix Signpost With Place Price Product And Promotion

First, how about the NUMBER ONE THING I’VE LEARNED from doing this research? It’s simple – you must plan an overall sales strategy, preferably over the whole year. Why? I’m glad you’ve asked:

The main reason for this is that once you’ve had a sale or a free promotion for your book, many sites WILL NOT CONSIDER promoting your book at a higher price for 30-90 days (see below for details on each site).
Some sites you can notify on the day of the promotion, others you have to notify well in advance.
Holidays. You might want to schedule your sales to be around Christmas? Or beach vacations? Or Independence Day?

And now, without further adieu, here are the advertising sites (some of which I’ve used), in alphabetical order:

Addicted to eBooks: Can post a free or low price ($5.99 or less) ebook only for free! The catch is that you will not know when it is posted on the front page, but at a cost of nothing, why not? They don’t accept erotica and you have to have at least 5 reviews. You can only submit your book once.

My experience: I have applied for an account on 25 September and got approved on 28 September. Created a profile and Shizzle, Inc ad on 28 September. Considering paying $15 for a week-long sidebar ad and a Facebook post, although the profile by itself has not made any impact on the sales.

Ask David: They have 43,900 Twitter followers as of October 2015. $15 promo package or free service for KDP Select freebies. Schedule free days up to 30 days in advance.

Author Marketing Club: subscribe to get marketing tips. 25K+ subscribers. Free subscription or optional premium membership. Very flashy website, and it kept sending me to the premium membership form – I almost gave up, but luckily found the Free Membership Form eventually.

My experience: I have signed up to try some of the tools.

Awesome Gang: Appears to be run by the same person that runs the Discount Book Man. I was pleasantly surprised that the top books in their “featured” list had great Amazon rankings (not to say it was all due just to the Gang, no matter how Awesome). That’s only for $10!! They say their newsletter goes to 4,600 subscribers, and they have almost 50K Facebook fans.

My experience: I was pretty impressed with the apparent value for the money, so submitted Shizzle for a promo on 10 October for a $10 USD. UPDATE: hard to say, as I had another promo on the day, however I’ve heard from other writers that they’ve been disappointed. I’ve tried contacting them after to ask when they’ve sent my book out – no response whatsoever.

BargainBooksy – see FreeBooksy.

BitTorrent: this is a bit “out there” idea, as this is the site often blamed for piracy. It has over 200 MILLION users. This seems great if you have a series – just give away the first book in the series for free, to build a fan base which will come back to buy the rest.

BookBlast: now called Booksends (below).

Booksends: claim that big-name publishers advertise with them. NOTE: the promo price has to be the lowest of any within the previous 90-day range.

BookBub: you will need to set up an account, after that you can go straight to Submit a New Deal. The price to list a free promotion is $70, and a $0.99 sale is $140 FOR THE US ONLY. Ouch. Another issue that the sale price has to be the lowest of the last 90 days. Apparently it’s so popular that it’s difficult to get selected, despite the cost. There’s an excellent series of articles by an author Nicholas Rossis, which describe tips and tricks on how to get selected.

Book Goodies: post your book for free, but only once, and you have to fill in an author interview (answer questions). So, you first have to complete the interview, then wait 2-3 weeks for it to be approved, then list your book. Cumbersome – yes. Free – hells yes. Please note that you give the website the right to publish your interview and your photo (if you choose to upload a photo).

My experience: I have answered interview questions and it was live just a week later on Book Goodies website. I received an email notification of the interview being posted on 5 October and it already had 3 Facebook and 4 Twitter shares. On 8 October it had 14 Twitter shares, but that number has not increased since.

Book Gorilla: seems a cheaper option, while still being quite popular and famous. This explains why they are BOOKED UP TO 2 MONTHS IN ADVANCE. Once again, the price of advertising depends on the book price – $4 to $50. You can also ask to be “starred”, although they will decide if they want to do it, based on your book quality – that would be an additional $100. They themselves say that it’s not likely to make much difference.

Read the full post on AnaSpoke.com.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com

Building Buzz Before Your Book Comes Out: 10 Strategies That Work

January 3, 2016November 17, 2015 by Publetariat

Today’s post by Chuck Sambuchino originally appeared on Writer’s Digest on November 4, 2015. He has some really good points about using social media.

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If you’ve got a book scheduled for release, whether it’s traditionally published or indie-published, the onus is on you to promote it. Here are some helpful strategies for making a big splash by using social media to build buzz before your book comes out.

1. Start early

It’s never too early to get your name and face out there. This gives you time to find your groove, make mistakes, and grow your social media following so that when you finally have news about your book, there will be an audience to hear it.

2. Explore social media

Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Pinterest? Goodreads? You can’t do them all. Start experimenting to see what works for you. If you started early, you’ve got time.

3. Post

Get creative, think out of the box. If you write historical fiction, post pictures of period clothing, dirty words from your époque, recipes from the era. If you write romance, update the public on the whereabouts of Fabio, post pictures of your favorite cover model. Review romantic comedies. If you write detective fiction, post a recipe for your character’s signature cocktail, or a diagram with the parts of a gun. Young adult (YA)? Post funny YouTube videos. Science fiction or fantasy? Announce and review cons. You get the idea.

Every tenth time, post book news—signing with an agent, book contracts, cover reveals, release dates, book giveaways, early reviews, announcement about pre-sales. People will endure your self-promotion because they like your other posts—kind of like a fundraising drive on public radio.

4. Use Facebook

It ain’t what it used to be, but it still rules across every age group. Last January, Facebook began sending out fewer and fewer posts to the people who like our pages, hoping we all would pay money to boost those posts to reach our followers. Also, posts from liked pages are now shuttled out of our “news stream” into a “page stream.” Here’s a simple trick to help circumvent that.

a. Post the following message on your Facebook page.

“When you like this page, remember to:
* Hover over the LIKED button.
* Click GET NOTIFICATIONS.
* Click SEE FIRST.

b. Pin that post to the top of your page. Followers who use this setting will be notified when you post.

Remember, you aren’t limited to your own Facebook page for promotion. Join existing community pages with members from your target audience. Find pages with a high number of engaged followers (lots of comments and likes). Every time you post, your name is out there. Mention your book when it’s polite to do so. It’s rude to over promote and it can backfire. Make sure you obey the rules.

Always put key words in the “topics” box on the “About” section of your Facebook page to make it more searchable.

5. Build relationships

Respond to everyone who comments with a like or a word. Check often so you can hide offensive posts. I’ve had Facebook followers duke it out over the pros and cons of corsets, so don’t underestimate the potential for conflicts.

Read the full post on Writer’s Digest.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com

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The Power of Instagram – Marketing Tips for Indie Authors

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Selling Books on Social Media: 4 Steps to Less Wasted Time

Four Steps to Less Wasted Social Media Time

What is a Primary Channel?

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How Goodreads Can Help Writers Grow Their Readership

The Goodreads of Today

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When Less Is More on Social Media

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How Authors Can Get More Fans and Book Sales with Less Social Media

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Twitter For Writers – More Proof That It Works – Updated

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How to Create a Monthly Social Media Calendar

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Which Social Media Channel Sells The Most Books?

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The Pros and Cons of Using a Facebook Profile But Not an Official Page

2006–2009: “Real” Friends Only

2009-2011: Everyone’s a Friend!

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The Most Super-Duper, Exhaustive, Comprehensive, and Current Listing of Free and Paid Book Advertising Websites and Ideas

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