7 Ways to Market Your Book Through Social Media

One of the vexing aspects of writing for authors stems from the 'unknown' factor - in other words, the fact that the author is unknown. Any of us who have written a book knows the frustration of attempting to get sales from anyone other than the big FFA (friends, family, and acquaintances). Many first-time writers believe writing the book must hold the most effort in their budding career only to discover penning (or keying, of course) the book is a stroll down a cheery lane compared to marketing and promoting.

New, and especially young, writers then jump on the social media bandwagon. "I'll just tell the world and everyone will come buy my book!".Unfortunately, other than those loyal FFA's mentioned above, writers again find a wall to book sales. One of the keys to selling books is finding how to sell to complete strangers online. This takes planning, effort, and good word choices. Here are seven ideas that may help.

1. Blogging - I know, I know. The dreaded "B" word. Blogging remains an effective tool for writers as long as you go about it well. Throwing out pleas to "Buy my book!" will be met with a pass-through click. There are more published authors today than anytime in history. That means the market is very competitive. A savvy writer will blog about ideas or concepts or offshoot products that relate to what their book is about. The savvy author will also include Amazon links or Barnes and Noble links, or whomever, to their book(s) within each blog. An astute author will also know that Tuesday morning and Saturdays are the best posting days for blogs due to traffic patterns.

Even if your book is fiction, there are aspects in the book that relate to real life. One of your characters may be a real estate agent. So blog on real estate issues, concerns and fun tidbits. The people interested in real estate may well be part of your market since you have a character who is in the business.

Keep your blogs tight and to the point. Avoid rambling blogs. Throw in a picture related to the topic as well. As a publisher I hate to say this, but people do not wish to read walls of text anymore. Throwing in pics or videos increases your chances of gaining an audience.

Blog consistently, and shoot for three posts a week. I recommend Tuesday and Thursday mornings and Saturdays. Realize as well, that you can write a bunch of blogs and schedule them to post whenever you wish. At the beginning of each month I ofttimes I will write out four blogs and post one a week for four weeks. If I repeat this process two more times at the beginning of each month, by blogging 'duties' will have been fulfilled for the month.

Guest blog on other blog sites related to your topic. Always include a link to an actionable site where a potential reader can purchase your book. Invite other bloggers to post on your blogsite.

2. Facebook - Yes, Facebook is a community of people telling us that they just brushed their teeth and their dog with the same brush or how they "went out to eat last night and had the most amazing shrimp." Facebook is also a sea of potential book buyers.

Set up a Fanpage on Facebook, preferably with your book title as the username. (To get an 'official' username on a Facebook Fanpage, you must get at least 25 people to "Like" the page). Once you set up your page, post provocative questions on your book topic that will invite an online discussion. Be very aware that if someone comments on your post, you should respond to their comment within an hour if possible. Even if your response is simply, "Thank you for commenting", people like to know their comment was received.

Get out into Facebook conversations that are speaking along the subject lines of your book. When you have something insightful to say on a topic, people will seek you out. When they do, they will land at some point on your Facebook page.

What you place on that Facebook page will determine whether they will stop and look or move on. Put links to all your social media outlets like LinkedIn and MySpace and Twitter on the page. Make it simple for potential customers to buy your book by placing "Buy Now" buttons on your page. Also include links directly to online retailers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble to insure they know where to go to get a copy of the book.

Be careful about posting too often on Facebook. If you're posting something every 10 minutes, you will wear out your digital welcome. If you have less than 100 people that have "Liked" your Fanpage, curtail your posts to one a day. Sure, if something comes up out of the blue that relates to your book, go ahead and post it. Otherwise, keep it palatable to the consumer.

For those with a much larger following, you can up your posting regimen, but again, do not over do this. Be respectful of other Facebookers. Also remember, each person on Facebook has an average of 140 friends. When you send something out to 100 of your friends, there is a potential to reach the 140 friends of each individual approached. You are then getting your name and product out in front of tens of thousands of people.

3. LinkedIn - LinkedIn is a community similar to Facebook but for business and professional people. Again, fiction writers must adapt their presentation to meet real-world mentalities, but the rewards could be handsome. One of the excellent LinkedIn features is a free 30 day trial of their premium package. This package allows you to connect with author, publishers, agents, etc. in a one-to-one connection on a professional level. You can also join groups who run in the circles you wish to run in yourself.

I watched my wife's business go from zero contacts to over 270 targeted contacts in less than the thirty days. These were not 'just anybody' types of contacts, but people who are movers and shakers in her type of business. Quality contacts can be invaluable to authors. Make use of these contacts and be willing to help others as well. You never know when the person you help today might need a boatload of your books tomorrow or mention your book on a major blog post.

4. Twitter - Twitter can be annoying. Anyone else with me on this? Yet, annoying as the program can be, Twitter effectively reaches large swaths of targeted people with relative ease. The trick is to catch people's attention within a 140 character post without sounding like a sales person. I know, I know. You want to sell your book. Post on Twitter, "Hey, everyone come buy my book" and see what happens. Most likely you won't sell any.

Your book contains words of interest to people, correct? If it doesn't, you should consider re-writing it. What targeted group of people would have an interest in what you wrote? These are the people you want to reach and Twitter can help you find them. Use the Twitter search tools to narrow down your audience to those specific to your book.

Too many authors say, "Everyone will want to read this book." That line is one of the biggest jokes or darkest self-deceptions in writing depending on what side of the book-writing process you are on. How will 'everyone' find out about your book. If you try to market to everyone, you better have huge resources or a desire to fail complex. Find your market and pursue them on Twitter.

Build a base of followers on Twitter who are interested in what you write. If you write romance and the folk following you are into reading technical manuals, you may not have a potential book buying audience. While you're building your base of like-minded folk, post Tweets that are related to your topic. Give your Peeps (Twitter followers) links to sites you found interesting on your topic. They will appreciate the heads-up information and be prone to check back with you.

A lot of success online comes from giving away information and even products. Do not feel like every contact must be a sale. You will quickly chase away your potential customer base if all you do is attempt to sell them. This is social media. Think of these people as your friends. You wouldn't walk up to your friends four and five times a day asking them to buy your book. Be natural, be helpful, and make sure you have a good website and a link to where people can "buy now". As people get to know you, they will seek out your book info and where to buy.

Make it easy for them to find your book and where to buy, but don't push it in your posts very often. You should have links to your website, bookstore (whether Amazon, Books A Million, Barnes and Noble or your own) and blog at their fingertips.

Use Twitter complimentary programs like HootSuite. HootSuite allows you to not only schedule and post Tweets to ALL your social media sites, it also monitors ALL your social media streams. At one glance you can get a picture of what is happening on your Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. This is a free suite of programs that offers a lot of help to those of us who wish to sit down once a week and schedule our Tweets for a week in advance. Taking an hour on Friday to post your Tweets for the next week simplifies some of your social network marketing. You can even select where you wish the posts to appear. Sometimes you may not wish a Tweet to show up on LinkedIn but you do want it on MySpace and Facebook. HootSuite delivers your solution.

5. Giveaways - I know you want to sell your book, but giving something away for free is an enticement to potential buyers. All the online gurus have been touting this for years now. Everyone from Jack Canfield to John Kremer tell us to give people something they need. Literally give it to them. People will be more inclined to purchase from you is the thought behind this.

You must make the giveaway something that actually benefits the person who receives it. You cannot give useless material out and expect sales to flourish. Ideas for giveaways can be as simple as a top ten list of things a person needs to know on the topic related to your book. The top ten list can be do's and don'ts. It can be specific, technical steps to complete a task related to your topic.

You must be able to deliver this free product in a fast, efficient manner as well. No one wants to sit around and wait for free product. If you do not have an autoresponder, make sure you get one for your giveaways. Why? Giveaways are great ways to collect the emails of people interested in your topic. Once you capture their email, you can then market more directly to them because you have their address and you know they are interested in what you're writing.

Giveaways can tremendously impact how many 'followers' you have on your social media sites. I noted a company who posted they would give away a nice coupon once their social media site hit a certain number of followers. Then, once the number was achieved, the company sent out coupons to their entire database of followers. The company was then able to market successfully to a targeted market they knew was interested in their product.

6. Email - I realize many people say email is dead. Ruined by spammers and hackers who love nothing more than placing viruses hither and yon, email's importance has waned with the advent of more 'social' means of communication.

One of email's large comeback steps, however, has captured the attention of many people. Video email. With video email, you eliminate the need to key text. Most people are tired of reading walls of text anyway. If you can deliver your message in a succinct video email, you will have won over a potential customer.

The advantage of video email falls out to many aspects of what consumers want. No massive walls of text. The ability to put your face and name in front of people becomes huge. Your mannerisms and presentation of material is uniquely yours. Potential customers love this personal, or social, manner of delivering information.

There are a number of companies out there who offer video email. My preference is ComF5 (www.comf5.com). While not as glitzy (or expensive) in their presentation like competitor TalkFusion (www.talkfusion.com), ComF5 offers more business solutions. Readers love to feel connected to the authors. Video is a natural, logical means by which an author can reach out to them and give them that connection.

Another interesting tidbit about video - people are getting tired of the 'perfect' human specimen. More and more people want to see a real person who looks and sounds like they do. Coming across an author who speaks on his or her book topic in a sincere manner can help the potential customer pull the trigger and purchase. The main thing is to keep it real. Be yourself and present your book(s) in a professional, personal manner. Assembling a 30 second elevator speech for a video presentation will pay off in your finished video product.

7. Mobile phones - For those of us who are old timers out there, the concept of simply reading books on a phone is ludicrous. Marketing on a phone? Absurd. Welcome to the 21st century folks. If you are not learning how to tap in on marketing through mobile phones, you are missing a huge opportunity to, at the very least, increase your database.

There are so many innovations happening in the communications sector a person would need a full-time employee just to keep up to date with all you can do with phones these days. I just set up a 'mobile' business card. I give a person a mobile number to text with a password and I can capture their name, phone number and email. I can even set up an autoresponder that not only sends them all my contact info, but also send a video greeting as well.

Databases are critical if you wish to market today, especially to a targeted market. When I meet someone who's interested in my business card, I refer them to my mobile video card as well as my paper card. This way I can help them put a face/voice/mannerism to my name as well as handing them a card they may lose. The video business card is accessible on their computer and on some smart phones. This is a great way to get people to remember a conversation the two of you had and possibly present you with opportunities you otherwise would have missed because your card was mixed in with hundreds of others.

Again, this service is offered through ComF5. There are quite a few other companies who offer mobile business cards, but price versus capability has kept me from them.

In conclusion, selling books to people you do not know through social media is an exercise in getting them to know you. You do this by giving them things, by presenting yourself as a benefactor to them through various social media sites and by keeping your face/voice/mannerisms in front of them so they remember you. This requires you giving them a positive experience so they will want to connect with you again. Whether that connections means buying your book or booking you to speak at their next event or any number of positive outcomes your focus must always be on positivity and giving freely of yourself. The old 'hard sell' is not popular on social media. Be yourself and be helpful.