Let’s explore some ways to promote your book on Social Media

This will be another short post to get the mind whirring on how we can stimulate interest for our books using Social Media. This is a valuable area where, so far, I have been remiss in using.

With a little research, I have discovered several tips on how to do this. I will expand a little on these.

• First, we should create unique content for our promotion.  This will be the foundation for all other tips we will pursue, so this will obviously be the most important task. How do we do this?
  • We should have our own blog or website. For me–check! If you are reading this, you are already on my promotional website that I developed on the Affiliate Marketing platform that I have been a member of now for almost five years, Wealthy Affiliate.
  • Next, we should do what we can to increase our online presence. This might not be palatable to many people, but we simply need to “bite the bullet” and do it. This can be accomplished in myriad ways:
    • We can explore and possibly join several forums (like Reddit or Quora) that might have discussions conerning the genre that our books might fit into.
    • We can also seek out and explore other websites which discuss or pertain to our book’s genre. This may require some extensive research.
  • We, obviously, should also use Social Media to promote our books, which is the title of this post too. The trick is figuring out which Social Media platform that we will use. That also, will require some research, along with personal preference!
  • We can also look at top authors’ books in our own genre. To do this we must investigate what the top-selling books in our genre have going for them that we don’t! When we figure that out, then our own books might start to gain positive traction!
  • It goes without saying but we should try to get reviews for our book (or books).
    • During some of my research on this, I learned that, as first-time authors, we could look up Amazon’s Top Reviewers. We should then try and focus upon the top book reviewers for our genre. There is a bit more research that needs to be pursued here so that the “ins and outs” of this method become more clear. There are several nuances of this method which need to be studied too.
  • On our books themselves, we should write an enticing book blurb. In my actual book posts on each individual book in my book series, and also all of my stand-alone books, I have also included the official Amazon Kindle book blurbs for perusal. When I was including these, I also noticed certain elements of those blurbs which could be tweaked a bit to garner better results.
    • One point in the research that I have been doing suggests that we should add any editiorial reviews that we might have received to that blurb. Since I have not yet received any of those, it is something that I should definitely consider adding to my blurbs if I receive any in the future.
  • Something else that I learned is that, even though I happen to like the covers that I have designed for my books, we should consider investing in a professional Cover design service for a variety of reasons. This is something that I will explore further, so I also have alot of research to do for that too.
  • We should also Maximize our distribution channels. Amazon used to have two separate channels for this, but since some of the information I was looking at during my research is a bit older, this is now easier done within Amazon since most of the different avenues have now been effectively merged into one.
  • Since I personally use Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, I am able to utilize all of Amazon’s array of book promotion programs and tools. Whatever program that you might be using may also have similar tools and programs too, but they might even have something compeletely different, as well. Some of the programs available to me as a KDP member are:
    • KDP select: This program allows me to offer five-day giveaways, and countdown deals for a lower price during specific periods, among other things. I have all of my eBooks available for this, and I have used the give-aways before too, but they did not garner me any reviews.
      • This also allows me to use Kindle Unlimited, thus enabling readers who might be interested in my book series to read my books for free, though I will still get paid for each page read. This is a nice feature which still enables me to make money while, they can “borrow” the book for free (the Kindle Lending Library). I have made a few dollars doing this in the past, and I am not opposed to it at all. This also provides me with an avenue to get my books discovered by readers who are unsure if they wish to purchase my books, and has utlimately led some people to purchasing my paperback versions too!

• Amazon Author Central
  • I already use this and it is an excellent resource! I periodically update the Author page there.
• Expanded Distribution Program
  • I have not yet used this, but I am intrigued.
  • This unique program offers authors the opportunity to make their print books available to certain online retailers, physical book stores, libraries, and even some universities. The possibilities are endless depending upon the level of promiton that we wish to do.

We do the tedious work of writing our book or books, but then the true work of promoting them comes into play

It seems that an author’s work is never truly done! I fell into this trap, thinking that all I had to do was get my finished work out there, and then everything else would be smooth sailing. Through personal experience, I quickly discovered how very wrong that I was! This purpose of this post is just to bring awareness to all of you, so that you know that this road will be paved with hard work and due diligence.

In the end, if we are serious, we must stay the course and continue to do what must be done to get our project fully to fruition. It will definitely be rewarding in the long run!

In the mean time, KEEP WRITING!