I'm in the throes of marketing The Yuletide Angel, which releases in ONE WEEK!! (You read that right--blatant self-promotion.) My publisher, Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas, assigns a marketing representative to each author, a guide to helping launch the book with as much success as possible. My rep is Meaghan Burnett. I've asked her to give an overview of marketing tips. This is the first of two posts with her social media advice. -- Sandy
Meaghan: You’ve spent months to years of your life writing your masterpiece. It’s taken countless hours, wracked your brain. You’ve fought for it—with the publishing house, finally getting accepted and published—or you made the decision to self-publish. The work is finally complete! Well . . . not really. Now your publisher wants you to market your work. Isn’t that what the publishing house is for? If you self-published, you’re at this precipice where your book is out. It’s launched, but how are people going to find it?
In today’s
market with all genres becoming more crowded, editors and publishing houses are
much more selective with their marketing efforts. The days of handing in your
manuscript and your publisher doing all the marketing is waning. A new model
where the author is proficient in social media is becoming the norm. Publishers
want you to be able to help push your book. If you’re self-publishing,
marketing your own work is a must, however what platforms should you be using?
Twitter,
Facebook, Goodreads, Google +, LinkedIn, YouTube, Vine . . . the list goes on.
Do you need ALL of these? No, not really. Remember this: you need to tap into
the social media of your target market. Who is your audience? If you haven’t
thought of this, you should take a moment and determine the target for which
you are aiming. Facebook is used by 98% of adults between 25-35. That is an
astronomical number. It is by far the largest social media site in the world.
Facebook is a must for authors. Twitter and Goodreads are both great platforms
as well.
While I won’t
tell you what platforms are best for you, I will give you five tips you may not have
known about the most popular platforms. You'll find the first two here, and I'll discuss the final three in the second post next Wednesday.
#1- Google Authorship: Google + is one of
those platforms most authors just don’t consider a necessity. This is a
critical problem. When you are talking about looking something up, how often do
you say, “Let’s Google it”? Google is the most used search engine and therefore
is a critical tool for authors. Google Authorship is a tool for authors to take
ownership of their work. By doing this on Google + you boost your credibility
with Google and therefore they boost your ranking in the search results. Google
Authorship and Google + are often the first to second platforms I tell an
author to set up. The link for setting up a Google Authorship for your blog or
website is https://plus.google.com/authorship.
An update: Since the writing and posting of this information, Google has discontinued its Google Authorship.
An update: Since the writing and posting of this information, Google has discontinued its Google Authorship.
#2- Twitter Lists: Did you know you can
follow people on Twitter without actually following them? Twitter Lists is a
great tool for authors because it allows you to follow lists of items that you
don’t necessarily want to directly follow. For example, if you want to keep tabs
on local publishing houses and media outlets, you can make a list of
Media/Publishing that will allow you to see only those in the thread. This tool
can help you as an author find publishers who are looking for your type of
book, or journalists looking for a story like your book’s launch. I have found
this is critical for book deal sites during your sales as well as reviewer
sites. For example, here is a list of eBook deal sites you can list your book
deals on https://twitter.com/AuthorNetworks/lists/book-deal-sites.
Make sure to read the second part of Meaghan's post next Wednesday, October 8, when she'll provide advice about working with three more social media sites. What social media sites work best for you? What type of posts provide you with the most success?
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Meaghan Burnett is an entrepreneur who started managing her family’s three businesses when she was eighteen and found she had a knack for developing new business strategies that helped make the businesses successful. She then expanded her horizons and started working for the largest international airline in the world. Meaghan started her own freelance consulting business in December of 2012 and has worked with clients from all over the country. To pursue her passion for literature, Meaghan began working with Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas in 2013. She began in design, but turned her focus and efforts exclusively to marketing in order to help authors build their brands, make their marks on history, and be successful. Meaghan lives in Syracuse, NY with her family and can be contacted at BurnettAuthorStrategies@gmail.
