Promoting Self-Published Books in Social Media – 7 Ways To Get Started
by Taylor Payne
Social media is a growing market for self-published authors to promote their work. As the popularity of social media increases, it has become the ideal place to share your book with readers and find new fans.
There are many ways for you to start promoting your book on social media, including using hashtags, posting pictures, creating contests or giveaways, and joining in conversations about books that have been published recently.
This article will walk you through how to get a book published and how to promote your self-published work online using seven simple steps. This will help you market your book and increase your chances of signing a deal with a book publisher or book publishing companies.
Build a Solid Facebook Community
You don’t have to build a community just for fans or followers of your book but around your book’s general theme or topic. This way, you can continue sharing information, experiences, and tips with people who share the same interests.
The beautiful thing here is that you can create as many communities as you want for various book topics or themes and keep honest and genuine conversations going at the same time.
Build an Author Website
Just because you’re self-published doesn’t mean you can’t have all the bells and whistles that come with being an author.
Having your own website builds your reputation as an author while promoting your brand on social media. Your website can be a vehicle to post updates, book excerpts, video clips, as well as reactions and comments from readers.
Create Your Own Fan Club
Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. An author fan club is another community you can create, but instead of subject matter —the focus will be you!
Creating a dedicated community for your fans allows them to interact with you directly and personally. It makes you more accessible to them since they can ask questions, message you now, and even share personal details about themselves with you.
Have An Active Twitter Campaign
Twitter is a powerful tool to attract new followers. It is easy to find followers on Twitter, but the real job is to keep these followers and grow them. Twitter marketing uses online word-of-mouth. An exciting tweet can get retweeted over and over again by other book lovers.
With Twitter, it is easy to mention influencers and other Twitter accounts with large followings. In turn, those mentioned can pick up on the post and retweet or interact with the campaign. This fuels the growth and extends the reach of the tweet.
Use Influencers
Influencers are social media accounts or individuals with large followings. These users are highly sought after, and their tweets effortlessly sway their followers. Influencers can be food bloggers, game vloggers, Facebook vendors, Instagram foodies, or other niche subjects.
For book publishing, you don’t need to limit yourself to book influencers, critics, or bloggers. When an influencer mentions your post, account, or book, you can be sure that many of their followers will read your posts and possibly follow your account.
However, influencers don’t have to be individual people. They can also be businesses that have a large enough following. Allowing your work to be posted on online book store websites lets your work be put in front of the thousands of visitors that visit that website a month.
Always Post Shareable Content
When you post on social media, you want your post to be shared by other people. For your post to be shared, it has to be shareable. It is not enough that your post is interesting to you. Other people should find it appealing enough to share it. You want your followers to think of other people that might be interested in your post.
In addition, it should have elements that catch the attention of the reader. Some ways to make your post shareable include:
- Images. You can add a photo to your article. Or you can post a meme. An exciting image can catch readers’ attention, and if the article is interesting, the reader will share the post.
- Video. More appealing than images, videos are shared more often than images.
- Snippets. A book snippet is a short text from your book. This serves as the hook to the reader and sparks interest in the book.
- Reviews. Honest reviews are great hooks for book readers, especially if it comes from a trusted book reader or critic. Keep the reviews unbiased.
Besides the pointers above, it’s also helpful to keep a checklist of dos and don’ts for posting on social media that you can look at right before you post something online.
Be Active On Instagram
Instagram is another short-form social media platform that generates plenty of traffic. You can post your images once a day or more frequently. Twitter and Instagram offer immediacy without the reader being bogged down in past posts. Twitter may generate more comments, but Instagram can create as much interest or more because of your post.
The caption can be longer than Twitter’s 140 character limit. It can make use of multiple hashtags or explain the picture in detail. A picture of a book may not be enough, but you can explain further in the comments.
The Takeaway
Self-published authors are often met with less respect than traditionally published authors. This is primarily since self-publishing does not require an agent, editor, or book publisher.
However, self-published books are of the same quality as those from established book publishing companies.
There’s a lot of talent in the independent publishing world. If you’re someone who is self publishing a book, you have just as much potential to be successful as any other author if you know how to promote your work effectively on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
You have to be bold enough to take the first step.
