by Jennifer Windrow

Whether you are traditionally published or self-published, marketing and social media is important to build your brand and sell your book. Even with one of the Big 5 publishers, you will be required to market your own books. And what is the best way to do that?

Social Media.

Social media is very important in our ever-evolving world as an author.

I am sure most of you, if not all, have some kind of internet and social media presence already. But do you have one for your author brand?

Let’s take a look at the different social media platforms and how they work…

Facebook

There are two kinds of Facebook pages, and you need to know the difference. A personal page (also called a profile page) is what you use for yourself. It connects with friends. A fan page (a business page) is what you use as an author. A personal page will have a limit to how many friends you can have. A fan page will not.

If you use your personal page as your fan page, Facebook may—and HAS—shut your page down with no warning. If you're currently using your personal page as your fan page, you need to get that fixed. It will take about 5 minutes to set up your fan page once you have your personal page. There are tools to help get your friends to like your fan page.

If you have no Facebook presence, you'll need to set up your personal page first. Your fan page will by necessity NOT be private. You don't want to lock people out of your fan page. You DO want to make your personal page private. Facebook is almost always in the news related to privacy issues. Set your privacy settings high and watch what you say.

Facebook is great for starting a conversation and learning what your fans are interested in.

X formally known as Twitter

Twitter uses hashtags (starting with #)—sort of short-cut labels—to sort these posts into conversations. For example, a search for #writing will bring up all of the current tweets about writing. You use the @ symbol in front of a person's username to write to or about them. Then if you search for @jennwindrow you will see what I have been up to!

Pinterest

With Pinterest, people "pin" interesting articles and pictures to "boards" based on their interests. Pinterest is one of my favorite social media sites. I use it for my writing career, but also for my other creative endeavors.

Find a topic that does connect with your ideal readers and then begin pinning and connecting there.

Goodreads

This is a book information sharing site, designed for readers and writers. 

Yes, you should be on Goodreads! But what do you do there?

• Post information about your favorite books. 
• Review other people's books. 
• Have an author page where people can find you and talk about your book.
• Run giveaways through Goodreads and find new readers.

But beware, Goodreads is a place for readers, not authors. The reviewers can and will be brutal and as an author it can crush your spirit to read some of the reviews.

Instagram

Instagram is a photo sharing social media. A lot of authors do very well on Instagram, I am not one of them, but it is also targeted for a younger demographic.

Bookbub

Another book centered social media. You can build your own author page on Bookbub, advertise through them, and review. The great thing about Bookbub, is their auto emails for book releases and sales.

Tik-Tok

Tik-Tok is the newest in social media craze. It’s a place where you make short videos and post them to your profile. There are a lot of authors who are using Tick-tock to advertise their books using the hashtag #booktock and others like that. It is becoming widely popular and, from what I hear, a great platform to get your name out there.

Other Ways to Sell

Build a website.

Every author should have a website that showcases your own books and even allows you to sell your own books.

Lisa Norman teaches a wonderful website class called Easy Author Websites, that I would encourage all of you to take if the idea of building a website seems scary.

Create a newsletter list

There are several providers that you can use to send out newsletters. Here is a list of a few that I know of…

1. Mailchimp
2. Mailerlite
3. Mad Mimi
4. Constant Contact
5. Go Daddy

Those are the ones I know off the top of my head and some of the most popular. Most of them offer some kind of free service until you hit a specific number of subscribers.

Final Thought

This seems like a lot of work if you already don’t have the basics down, but in the end, having all of this prepared before you release your first book will be a huge help and save you a lot of last-minute work.

Have you already laid the groundwork for social media? Do you have a good presence already, or do you need to work on it?

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About Jenn

Sass. Snark. Supernatural Sizzle.

Award-winning author of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance. Vampires, Greek gods, and a bit of Demon Destroyer fun for everyone.Jenn Windrow loves characters who have a pinch of spunk, a dash of attitude, and a large dollop of sex appeal. Top it all off with a huge heaping helping of snark, and you’ve got the ingredients for the kind of fast-paced stories she loves to read and write. Home is a suburb of it’s-so-hot-my-shoes-have-melted-to-the-pavement Phoenix. Where she lives with her husband, two teenagers, and a slew of animals that seem to keep following her home, at least that’s what she claims.

Website: https://jennwindrow.com/

Top photo from Depositphotos.