Many authors use Facebook to connect with their readers and to advertise their books, as Facebook offers many options from fan pages to paid advertising and even apps. There are many other social media services that work just as well.
Children's books, YA books, mainstream fiction, poetry, cookbooks, textbooks... Social media can be used for marketing all kinds of books. It is particularly useful for self-published authors with limited marketing budgets, but it is important to understand how social media works. It is all about opt-in and boring marketing approaches will be ignored. "Viral book marketing" is more than just uploading a promo video on YouTube!
Blogs
There are three main ways to utilize blogs for book marketing, though the first two of these are generally most effective:
- The author's own blog
- Book reviews and interviews in others' blogs
- Commenting on others' blogs
Both personal blogs and blogs that offer the reader concrete benefits work well, while some fiction authors have decided to blog as a character from their novel.
While real-world book tours are very expensive, virtual book tours held in blogs are becoming more and more popular.
There are many ways for authors and publishers to successfully use Twitter. Some authors tweet quotes from their books and links to reviews, others post more about their life and thoughts with only occasional mentions of their books. Videos and photos can make tweets much more personal.
Examples of famous authors successfully using Twitter include Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself), Paulo Coelho (@paulocoelho) and Margaret Atwood (@MargaretAtwood).
Indie author Jeremy C. Schipp (@JeremyCShipp) makes eccentric yet aggressive use of Twitter for promoting his genre novels, apparently with much success.
YouTube, Vimeo and Other Video Sites
Book trailers are all the rage now and there are even specialized sites for them. It is easy to find examples for inspiration and tutorials for making them.
Video blogging, video interviews and recordings of book readings are other ways to make use of social media video sites. Just remember not to use any copyrighted material without permission!
Other Social Media Sites
The popularity of different social media sites varies from country to country. For example, Orkut is highly popular in India and Brazil, so a writer who wants to expand their audience in those countries would do well to set up an Orkut profile and perhaps some groups.
While MySpace is not very popular among authors, for YA literature and some other genres it can be a useful marketing venue.
Many forums and most Usenet newsgroups do not allow commercial messages, but active participation and an interesting signature can still yield good results.
Location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla have not been used much for book marketing, but for some books it would certainly be possible to come up with ways to use them.
There are niche social media networks for almost any subject, which non-fiction and genre fiction authors in particular should keep in mind.
Contests
Contests are always good for marketing. They can be held on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and just about any social media service. Twitter contests often involve asking people to follow or retweet something. More creative approaches include contests for 140-character poetry, short stories, slogans and tips.
Twitter and most other sites have set no rules for holding contests, but Facebook has a huge list of guidelines for such promotions. It is not allowed to hold a contest into which fans are automatically entered.
One can also donate prizes - which could include books, promo material related to the book and/or even consulting sessions from the author - to other people's contests.
The Most Important Things in Social Media Marketing
Social media can be used for conducting marketing research. It is also great for networking. Besides fans and potential readers an author or their representive can connect with bookstores, agents, journalists, bloggers, TV producers and many other useful opportunities.
Authors can benefit from social media in other ways besides just boosting sales. They can connect with other authors (and experts whose knowledge they can use when researching new books) and get ideas for new books, valuable feedback and a better idea of their audience.
The most important rule of social media is: be human and be yourself. People don't want to "friend" a marketing campaign, they want to connect with a real person and many at least hope for the occasional two-way communication.
One Final Tip
One of the best ways to use social media to boost book sales is to remind people to post a review on Amazon.
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