Most authors have traditionally used offline strategies to create buzz for their new book. These methods typically entail striving to gain coverage in local press, sending out press releases and holding public sessions to talk about the book. These methods are certainly costly and may not reach as many people as an emerging author may intend to. Social media has changed this, and emerging authors can now access millions of potential readers and buyers.
Through a well created website, an emerging author is able to connect to his readers, understand what the readers want and strategize further on how to convert the readers’ interests into sales. An effective website is one that provides informative content, previews of works that are yet to be published, commentaries and news in that particular niche, if the book targets a special niche. Placing links to online stores through which interested readers can purchase the book is also an effective strategy for marketing the book. Many authors also provide free snippets of the book to entice readers.
Emerging authors should make an effort to network with their potential readers. Using social media is the best way to this. There are many social media platform exist at the moment but the most popular of course remain to be Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, Squidoo and Google Plus.
For marketing your book you need to have a Facebook page as long as Facebook profile. You should put effort to connect to your friends and their friends to make an effective way of generating attention for the book.
On you Facebook page it is also important to include links to the author’s website as well as links to book retailers. This will ensure that interested buyers have an easy time finding and purchasing the book.
Joining relevant groups is a great idea to find the potential buyers for your book. You can also create your own group on Facebook and become its group leader.
Twitter.
Twitter is a great social networking tool which emerging authors can use to post real time messages to their fan base. It is important that these messages be relevant to the affair of promoting and publicizing the book. Authors can post messages about their location during book tours, about any offers or anything interesting about the book at hand.
Social media marketing experts are cautious about encouraging people to make hard ‘sells’ when promoting their product, in this case, a book. Too much selling can turn off even the most avid fan.
YouTube
Videos on sites such as YouTube have the potential to go viral and thus serve as an effective social network marketing tool for the emerging author. When creating a trailer for a new book an author should focus on keeping the trailer short and to the point. Videos should be no longer then 2-3 minutes. Briefly introducing readers to the various themes in the book is a good strategy to hook readers. It is also a great idea to incorporate music and images to further interest the readers.
To use social media effectively, emerging authors should understand their target audiences and how to reach them. It is also of import to consider that the message communicated via social networking sites is the most important asset an emerging author has- apart from the book, of course.
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