By Book marketing and – Your $$$$$
A post I should have written some time ago upon learning of these vital steps to watch out for.
As authors will flood to market their new books and titles and works of art for the holiday season, there are few pointers worth taking into consideration. Of course social media will be a go to place for a new author to brag about their accomplishment and rightfully so too. We have all done it.
And your marketing money is as much as you would like it to be, right?
There are many ways to plaster your new book all over the internet for readers to be able to find you and you can do so by reaching out to those of us who have done it before or you can blaze a trail all by yourself. Life is all about choices after all. In my experience I have found that other authors, though direct competition, they have been very supportive. I think it has something to do with how everybody remembers their first time. Also with a large number of readers in the world the element of direct competition between authors begins to slim down when one realises the ration of readers to authors that actually exists.
Some pointers below and be sure and read until the end to get the real embedded heads up.
- Twitter. Engage with other readers and writers by checking out their profiles and see what they have going on. Almost all will reciprocate with retweets of your new book and content when you have paid them the same compliment. Example, I get notifications when somebody likes a tweet I have tweeted. I receive the same notification when somebody has commented on my tweet and same notification when I have received a rewteet. Which carries more weight though? The retweet to your own followers increases my reach; this makes the retweet the more important interaction. I will automatically go and retweet a persons “pinned tweet” as a gesture to say thank you and this is how you can gain access to my followers by me retweeting your content to my followers.
A pinned tweet is the tweet that you keep pinned to the top of your profile feed. It basically means it is your business card of your most relevant or most recent info that you wish to share with the world. Some users will post their most valued info in a pinned tweet and forget to ever change it or update it. A pinned tweet is usually good for a few months and if it is not working then create a new way to say the same thing and catch the eye of potential customers. Remembering all of the time that Twitter is not face book and when you like a post, it is nice though not as effective on twitter. Face book will tell all of your friends what you liked on face book. Twitter will only broadcast your retweets for your friends to see. So on twitter the retweet is the best inter action you can be involved into receive more reach for your own content.
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Instagram has a huge audience and like twitter you are best using all elements though giving focus to your reels and your story. Reels & posts on Instagram will allow you to use hash tags in the post and you can attract users who do not even follow you by the hash tag usage. Getting involved and sharing something someone else has posted in your own story is a great way to get noticed and receive similar shares and extended reach. Use the hash tags and post daily in your story and reels and general posts. Why daily though? Unlike twitter your pinned tweet can sit atop your profile for all who visit to see when they begin to take notice of you. Instagram differs because there is so much content being shared so much of the time that your reel may be missed and is tiny and only a small little snippet. Post to each at least once a day on Instagram. Be sure to paste a link to your website or new book inside of your “bio” on your profile. When someone manages to notice your 5 seconds clip of a reel or story they may wish to click on your account and see who you are and what you are about. Your link in your profile becomes a very valuable asset to have for those precious moments when you caught somebody’s attention.
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Now for the mighty Face book. They own instagram yet do not generate competition to each other. Not directly at least. Face book posts will prompt you to connect your instagram account and offer to you to share on both platforms at the same time. This isn’t bad really because it saves you time. The days of old always told me that face book was not using any algorithms to recognise hash tags and that they used to be a waste of time, while Instagram was all about the hash tag. Face book appears to have improved greatly in this area and has been since the complete takeover of instagram that they must have really learned of the importance of the hash tag.
The one true pet peeve is that when you come to think about throwing some money down on a “promoted ad”. There are a couple of ways to look at this too. Is it worth it? Face book will prompt you to boost your post and can be very specific and awesome at dialling in your target audience. Face book will offer coverage of certain age groups and specific target areas too called “geographical targeting”.
Is it worth spending 100 bucks to sell 1 book? Obviously not so it has been suggested by many to use a smaller budget and see how it goes first. Keywords will be you big play to determine how many like minded or potentially interested readers you will be able to reach. When you figure out the right formula for your target audience then you can spend a few extra quid. Remember there is no point in targeting London and Manchester if your new book is not available easily on the Amazon UK site for example. If your new title is only available on Amazon UK then it makes no sense to be blanket marketing to the US & Canada now does it?
Check out the promotion groups and kindle lovers groups and so on and so forth. It is in these groups in face book that you might see a ton of spam accounts posting nonsense videos within these large groups and they are not true readers. It is here where face book can mess with you. You may set a budget of $100 and the ad to run for 3 days. Face book will show your ad often, there is no doubt about that. You may have selected the London area as an example. On day 2 you have reached 5 of your budget and only 1 day to go. This is when you will these bogus accounts clicking into your new book boosted post and your budget will be eaten up. Kind of like fake accounts are eating up your marketing budget without given you a fair shot at it. Keeping in mind of course that there are many people who never look at sponsored ad anymore and your marketing bucks for your new ad might be a big waste and bet kept in your own pocket.
- Tik Tok. It is pretty simple from my stand point. Similar to your reels on Instagram. They are all about short and catchy posts to bring interest to your external links. In saying that tik tok has been very generous to many people so far and there is nothing to say you and your new book won’t be the next big thing. Go for it and be creative.
Enjoy the ride and well done o completing your book. You deserve to shine for a while for tat accomplishment alone. This blog post is my give back for all the help I have received from author when I started out on my writing journey. Once again well done YOU!
A.McNallyauthor.com 