Connecting with potential readers is easier than ever if you understand how to find your audience online. Here are 3 quick ideas that are easy to start:
1) Start a Facebook page, and make your book a prominent feature. You can even start a "Fan" page on Facebook for your book. This will allow you to connect with friends from your past and make new ones as well. Word of mouth is still the best form of advertisement, but using word of mouth through Facebook can help your message spread quickly!
2) Tweet. That's right, Twitter is not just for Ashton Kutcher anymore. Point people to your book, get involved in tweeting about the topic and nature of your book, and learn how to tweet and re-tweet others' comments. (Click here to read an easy article on the basics of using Twitter.) Start following others, and they may start following you. And of course, point people to your blog...which leads me to idea #3.
3) Start a blog. It's easy...just use the Blogspot forum that I'm using here to set up your own page. Then point traffic to your blog via Facebook and Twitter. What will you write about? Well, anything you want - but if you want to sell books, write about your book or your topic of your book, and be sure to include the images of the book cover and the links to purchase your book on Amazon, bn.com, or other online retailers. You can begin following other writers and their blogs as well, which will help you plug in to the community of authors online. And if you don't know where to start, check out other authors' blogs for ideas.
Many people don't use social networking because they are afraid to jump into something they don't understand. But the only way to do it is to...well, do it!
Think of it this way...if you begin attending a new church or school, or if you start a new job, you need to meet people to get plugged in. Imagine the social web as a room full of people to meet...and not just people - potential readers of your book! As you connect with them, they connect with you.
Best of all, as an author, blogging and writing online will give you another outlet to hone your craft as you use words to connect and interact with others.
Building relationships with your intended audience is at the crux of selling books. And now more than ever, your audience is just at the end of your fingertips.
2 comments:
Thank you Mark for posting this. I am wanting to start using these outlets to gain interest on my book however, my book does not even start production until January 2011, is it too early to start this?
Thanks,
trying to be patient author Heather Garcia
It's never to early to start, Heather! I would encourage you to read the most recent post on my blog to see how Tate author Kathie Truitt build a following using social networks while she was still in production!
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