Tag: Marketing

Writing Exercise: Social Media as a Marketing Tool

Erin Penn

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?

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words 7/2/2010

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of toonsteb at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

To a Bookstore We Go

Back in 2010, Stuart Jaffe wrote a great blog for Magical Words on how to use a visit to the bookstore to understand the publishing industry and marketing strategy by the publishers and the bookstores. Lots of great questions – I recommend to cut and paste and save. The full blog is here under the title Publishing – Learning at the Bookstore: http://www.magicalwords.net/really-i-mean-it/publishing-learning-at-the-bookstore/

The problem of implementing this strategy in 2019 is finding a bookstore. (sad face)

Instead, go to various eBook locations and see what they are doing in your genre section (and nearby sections). How are “also reads” being linked, do they show series for both novels and novellas, what shows up on your recommends when you first log in, etc? See if you can get a friend or even con someone at a Starbucks to help you do the research and set up your laptops side-by-side and see what different things show up. Can you get someone of a different gender, melanin level, or income strata to help you? What book recommends show up in your Facebook feed or social media sites and do they impact yours (and those helping you) purchases? 

Ask around, how does the casual reader find information versus a veracious reader versus someone connected to the industry?

Does being city or suburbia affect what they look at – and how their market share is reached?

As a writer, editor, or someone in the industry, you might want to do this exercise every year or two – since technology is changing that fast.

WRITING EXERCISE: Do a Market search and get a general feel. Next, guess based on the past, what changes you think you will see in two years? What techniques are equivalent to “book cover out” and “end display” within a bookstore and within eBook book websites, and what do you think they will become? Record your findings and guesses somewhere so you can track changes over time. Repeat in 2021.

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words 2/26/2008

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Shameless self-promotion. Author, artists, and many others use this term, like self-promotion should be shameful. Yet, when you are your brand – you are the marketing department – promoting yourself is required.

Every sale is a job interview, whether at a convention panel or at the signing table. Authors go on book blog tours, with a ton of behind the scenes begging to market the book. Job interviews are about self-promotion; sales are all about marketing.

Should something be shameful when it is an essential part of your job? Does a chef shamelessly wash dishes after cooking? Does the mechanic shamelessly change oil? Does a teacher shamelessly return graded papers back to students? No, they simply wash dishes, change oil, and grade papers. Authors should be able to self-promote without embarrassment.

Catie Murphy covered the topic in more detail at Magical Words under “shameless self-promotion”.