Social Media. It may be a lot of (negative) things, but it’s also an extremely wide-reaching, FREE platform for you to put your book and yourself on. It’s basically a no-brainer, right? So, what’s holding you back?
Maybe you’ve been dreading it. Or maybe you don’t think you need it. Well, I hate to break it to you, but… you do. If – that is – you want more than your mom or your best friend, or that lady you had a nice chat with standing in the Starbucks line to know about your book.
If your mountain is fear, I get it. Putting yourself out there is scary. But you didn’t spend all those months – or years – writing this thing to not give it a fighting chance.
If your hill is a lack of know-how, we can fix that right now. We’ll start with Facebook. Here is a step by step process for creating your Official Facebook Business Page.
- Have an existing personal account. You cannot create one without the other.
- On the right side of your Facebook screen, you should see the tab Create. A new window will open with the option to create a page.
- Facebook will now walk you through several steps to develop your page. Which now makes my tutorial obsolete. So, I give you my suggestions.
Right out the gate, there are two options – create a Business/Brand page, or a Community/Public Figure page. this is entirely up to you. I chose Business/Brand so I could sell my books & services through the page. For authors, the Public Figure is the most common choice.
I’m often asked by new authors, ‘Do I really need to have a business page? Can’t I just use my personal page?”
The answer to that is yes, you can use your personal page to promote your book. What this should mean – in a marketing sense – is you’ll be inviting people (strangers) to friend/follow you, thereby giving said strangers access to your personal life – as in: your child’s birthday party, that concert you went to last week and got totally lit, your spouse, ect. So, if you don’t want strangers in your biz, create a separate author page and make your personal profile private (or friends only).
Let address again the “Do I really need a Facebook page” question.
My answer is, It’s a good idea. If you really, really hate social media (hey, I get it, it’s a cesspool of garbage much of the time) then I suggest you go the email route.
Email is still (sort of) king for reach.
Pretty much everyone encourages building your subscriber list, so… it’s a thing. Start with friends and family, give them engaging content, and grow that list. There’s a variety of methods to do so, but most start off with an organic reach and perseverance. If you’re dedicated and consistent with your content, you may never even need that dreaded social media platform.
So do I just send out a group email?
Well, yes… and no. You can start by sending an email to all your contacts offing them the opportunity to be on your mailing list. Tell them why they just might want to (giveaways, insider news, ect). But after that, the rest of your emails should come from a host site like MailChimp. (Why, yes, clicking on that hyperlink WILL take you to my subscriber page!)
Only you can decide what works best for you. I do encourage you to use social media because it’s free. However, if it just ain’t for you, then you have to find other ways to promote, and that is perfectly fine.
As always, feel free to reach out directly to me if you have questions. If you need one on one help, consider my Path To Authorship mentoring sessions.
