A Day in the Life of Troubador Marketing – Part 4
On publication: Social Media and Digital marketing. This involves several online marketing tools that help promote an author’s title(s) and boost their visibility.
Sarah Taylor plans a social media campaign
Social media marketing is fast becoming an intrinsic part of an author’s marketing arsenal. Alongside the other marketing steps that you should consider – whether you’re carrying them out yourself, or using a company to do it for you – using social media sites like Twitter and Facebook can help boost the profile of you and your books.
It’s important to maintain a delicate balance between personal and professional on social media; you shouldn’t just be a sales bot and spam your followers with requests to buy your book, but neither should your channel be filled with information about what you’ve had for breakfast! Show your personality and contribute to the wider writing community; amplify any media coverage you get, promote any events you’re holding and share any special discounts or giveaways that you’re offering. Think about what your followers can gain from following you on social media that they can’t get anywhere else.
Another vital part of online marketing is having a website – a professional landing page that lists your book(s), contains links to buy and also information about yourself as an author. You can also think about what you can add to your site that’s relevant to your book. If you’ve written an educational children’s book, you could include links to external resources that support your book’s central message or offer print out activity sheets relevant to your book. If you’ve written a travel book, you could have a blog detailing the different food that you’ve eaten along your way!
In essence, a website is a great way to add original content that doesn’t detract from the value of your book – and also to attract readers and users. It’s also a good way to promote special offers and discounts, or short extracts if you want to give readers a taster of the book that you’ve published.
You can link in your social media channels, a biography and pictures so that your website becomes a comprehensive online platform for you and your books. Make sure you think carefully before you register your domain name: if you’ve written more than one book, it’s a good idea to use your author name rather than your book title as the website name. That way you can link all of your titles to one site, rather than create a new site per book. The same goes for your social media channels – it’s a good idea to brand them by author name rather than per book. That way you can channel all your followers through one main channel rather than trying to increase fans through a multitude of channels.
Above all, it’s always best to keep two principles at the core of your social media and digital activities – what can readers get from your channel that they can’t get anywhere else, and to ensure that you update your channels on a regular basis. Social media is only done well by committing to a regular posting schedule, and websites should always be kept as up to date as possible.
Have fun…
As you’ll have learned from this article, book marketing is not a simple, one-shot process. However, we hope you’ve learned exactly what you need to do to promote your book and when – by undertaking these steps your book will have the best chance of making sales and a splash in the media! Make sure you have fun, too – marketing can be daunting, but also creative and enjoyable.
About us…
Matador offers a bespoke, comprehensive and high-quality self-publishing service. (www.troubador.co.uk/matador). We also offer standalone marketing and distribution services for authors who publish elsewhere (http://www.troubador.co.uk/distribution.asp) and standalone design and editorial services via our sister company, Indie-Go (http://www.indie-go.co.uk).
Our annual Self-Publishing Conference, held on 22nd April 2017, offers sessions on all aspects of the publishing process and can be tailored to each delegate’s requirements – registration is open now for £65 per person: (http://www.selfpublishingconference.org.uk).