Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash
I don’t do marketing nearly enough, let alone leveraging the massive bounty social media provides the independent and traditional author. Sure I have a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ErinPennBooks), a website with an active blog (erinpenn.com), a goodreads account where I do regular book reviews complete with an author page (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4918831.Erin_Penn), a profile on bookbud where I post reviews (https://www.bookbub.com/profile/2409314692), an Amazon author page (https://www.amazon.com/stores/Erin-Penn/author/B00CLSPZ68), and a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@erinpenn7745), but I barely use them to market. (I also have a Pateron, but I took that down for now. It might return in the future.)
I sometimes remember to cross-post my blog post to my Facebook page, but that doesn’t sell books.
John Hartness – the pinnacle of “buy my shit” – recommends that once a week (varying the day), make a post (cross-post between twitter, Facebook, and your other social media channels) about your writing. Just four posts per month about you, anyone can do that, right? Another two or three posts about someone else’s work just to spread the love.
Week 1 (Wednesday) – Hey, got an audio book; Week 2 (Tuesday) – And a ebook; Week 3 ( Thursday) Also available in print; Week 4 – Ebook is cheap!
Alternate books if you got more than one out. Concentrate on one a month.
While Facebook keeps changing their algorithms, they really don’t like people selling without paying them, or directing people away from the FB app – so it usually is better to put the buy link into comments. If you got a YouTube video, see if you can load it someway to the FB app instead of sending people to YouTube.
Speaking of YouTube, if you have an audiobook out, Hartness recommends going to YT about once a month and see if people are uploading pirated versions on the YT. You paid well for that audiobook, don’t let pirates kill it.
So while I have a big social media footprint, I am not using it at all.
WRITING EXERCISE: Mention something you have written that is available for people to read on one of your social media account.
My Attempt: Does this count?