3 Reasons to Social Network to Build Your Author Platform

Guest post by Nina Amir

Social networking can be a time sink, but it doesn't have to be. More importantly, social networking is a publicity must for any author. There are platforms to be built on social networks. You can build one there.

If you want to build your author platform, start here:

Create a Fan Base on Major Social Networks.

Set up profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+. Your fans on these networks might later purchase your book. They also may circulate the information you post—the links to your blog posts, the date of your book release, the times and places where you are speaking or teaching. This allows their followers to read your status updates and click on your links, which, in turn, increases the chance that new people might check you out, read your blog, subscribe to your newsletter, follow you, purchase your book, etc.

Develop Expert Status.

Every time you participate in forums and groups, such as those on Facebook and LinkedIn, or in any way post information about your topic, you demonstrate your expertise and give other people in those groups, forums, and social networks a chance to notice this. They will look at your profile. They will click on the links you have provided and then possibly choose to subscribe to your blog, follow, or connect with you on a social network, or in some way become fans.

Increase Your Searchability.

Work to increase the searchability of your name, your book title, and your website or blog. Each time you join a network, you create a profile that includes a link that can be found in search engines. This profile also may have a place to link back to your website or blog, which can increase traffic to your blogged book. Most profiles also can include your name, your book title, and your website.Because social networks already rank highly in search engines, your profiles make all of your information more findable via searches.

All three of the above features of social networks are key reasons why you need to get involved in social networking.



About the Author

The author of ten books, including How to Blog a Book, Nina Amir is an editor, consultant, and coach. Her clients’ books have sold 230,000+ copies and landed deals with top publishers. The founder of Write Nonfiction in November, she writes four blogs and two Examiner.com columns.

For information on her services, visit CopyWright Communications. To find all her blogs, go to http://www.ninaamir.com.

Book Marketing Makeover: Using Social Networks and Facebook Contests to Sell Books

Guest post by Omar Luqmaan-Harris

1. How large is your platform or network? Did you use your platform or network in marketing your book? If so, how?

The platform for The Pantheon Collective (an independent publishing venture) is currently over 11,000 strong. Social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Slideshare, Flickr, and Goodreads) is essential to our marketing strategy.

Growing this network and engaging them has been essential to the success of our three published books: Sellout by James W. Lewis, When Love Isn't Enough by Stephanie Casher, A Hard Man is Good to Find by James W. Lewis, and our soon to be published fourth novel: One Blood by Qwantu Amaru.

2. Are you involved in any social networks? Have you used them in marketing your book? Again, if so, how?

Currently we have 7 Facebook pages, 4 Twitter accounts, 4 websites, a Slideshare page, 4 YouTube channels, a LinkedIn page, and 3 Goodreads pages.

One of the keys to leveraging social media into sales and marketing is to clearly define the target audience for our books. We have created several Facebook pages branded specifically to the book we are promoting and we engage each page's audience very differently depending on the profile of that audience.

For example, on our oneblood Fanpage (http://www.facebook.com/onebloodbook), which is a horror/supernatural suspense novel, we engage the audience via posting horror related content every day with a few calls to action sprinkled in between. On Scribd and Slideshare, we have posted profiles of the characters of One Blood, as well as a free 30-chapter preview of the novel. Then we link back to these properties on Facebook, Twitter, and our websites.

3. Have you created and posted any online videos? Did any of them go viral? How many people viewed them?

Video has been a part of our engagement strategy from the beginning of our publishing venture. The book teaser for our first novel Sellout by James W. Lewis has received over 2,000 views and has won several book teaser awards. Our latest book teaser for One Blood by Qwantu Amaru has been viewed nearly 3,000 times.

4. What Internet marketing technique produced the best sales results for your book? Did you do anything interesting to boost the effectiveness of the technique?

Figuring out how to make the normally passive and voyeuristic Facebook audience active and engaged in promoting our books has been a key marketing tactic we've used to sell nearly 10,000 copies of 3 books (91% via Amazon kindle) in less than two years.

We found a social contest site, Wildfire interactive, and integrated this with our Facebook pages. The contest was simple: We encouraged existing fans of the Facebook page to share the page with five of their friends. Once they did this, they sent us an email with the subject I Shared and we would send them a free PDF copy of the book. They needed to read their free book and post a review on Amazon.com. Once the book reached the requisite number of reviews on Amazon, one lucky person would receive a $150 Amazon gift card and free signed copies of all of our books. We have used this promotion twice in the past year to significantly boost the fan page numbers, Amazon reviews, and our opt-in e-mail database.

Final Prediction

Here’s a prediction for you that’s already partially come true. First, ebooks will reach and then exceed trade paperbacks in unit sales. Trade paperbacks are the bread and butter of bookstore chains so they will crumble under the weight of all that stagnating inventory on their shelves.

Big Publishing will respond by jacking up the prices of their own ebooks without upping their author’s royalties, causing a mass exodus of authors from their ranks. The best literary agents will broker phenomenal deals for the superstar authors making the bottom line ache even more for the Big Guys. To hide their wounds, The Big 6 will become the Big 2 or 3 as inevitable consolidation becomes all the rage.

Meanwhile, indie publishers and authors will become savvier and the complexion of top lists like the New York Times Bestseller list will change permanently when there are as many indie authors represented as traditionally published authors. It is at this moment that Big Publishing will give up the ghost and start a massive round of layoffs.

This is the worst thing they could ever do, as some of the world’s best editors, book marketers, and sales people will now be free agents and thus competitors to the very companies that fired them. Consolidation will continue until there are only two Big Guys left who have finally found a niche to make money: hardcovers for the die-hard collectors and textbooks.

About the Author

Omar Luqmaan-Harris, aka Qwantu Amaru, is author of One Blood and a co-founder of The Pantheon Collective.



The mission of The Pantheon Collective is to empower and inspire authors to take control of their publishing dreams. Follow us on our website at http://www.pantheoncollective.com to get free information on publishing, book marketing, and other useful tips.

Book Marketing Makeover: Social Media: Pros and Cons - Should You Join in the Fray?

Millions of Americans make daily blog entries, share video and photos, tweet, or post information on places like Facebook. Is it worth their time and effort to do it?

Before we answer that question, let’s examine the potential non-financial payoffs.

• Make new friends or keep up with existing relationships.
• Share ideas and information that is meaningful to you in hopes you will help or influence others.
• Serve your inflated ego and narcissistic leanings.
• Initiate a public dialogue on an issue or topic of importance.
• It may help you get noticed by major news media.

Now let’s look at the potential monetized payoff of social networking:

• It sells something, like a book -- hopefully lots of them.
• It brands you as an expert who can then charge higher fees for existing services/products.
• It generates more business or provides more client leads.
• It helps you raise funds for a project, non-profit, or foundation.
• It allows you to charge for advertising or sponsorship - or sell subscription fees.
• It increases website traffic so you can sell a seminar or launch a new product or service.
• It captures email addresses so you can market to your new fans in the future.

So are social networks worth joining?

It’s worth trying, first because it’s free (except for your time) and second because it’s becoming less a choice and more of an obligation. People expect authors to blog, tweet, and have a website.

If you were looking for a job – in almost any field – a potential employer will look at your online resume to see what you do and say, but in publishing magnify that by tenfold. You need to be out there, in the mix.

Still, aside from expectations or social pressures, authors and those in book publishing should be a part of the online dialogue where the book community now flourishes. You will connect with others, learn, discover and share information, and create your marketing footprint.

Others have gone too far in focusing on social media, as if that were the only way to promote a book. Please note: Few people can blog their way to a bestseller list. A balanced attack is necessary to sustain long-term growth as an author.

Traditional publicity, speaking engagements, direct marketing, select advertising, and social media are the pillars to launching and building a career in publishing. You can’t dismiss any of these parts and you can’t overly rely on any one of them.

The digital landscape will continue to evolve and change. Perhaps Twitter will disappear in a few years or change significantly but it or something else will be the playground for ideas and a driving force in the marketplace. Like anything else, your success with social media is dictated by the quantity and quality of your efforts, by your level of creativity, by your relationships, by your willingness to experiment, and your ability to learn to do new tricks.

So the answer is yes to social media, but you should diversify your activities. Allow it to fit your preferences, time demands, and needs, but don’t ignore it, dismiss it, or think it’s a big waste of time. But don’t think it’s the savior either.

Continue to do other things to market yourself. It’s okay to still send letters via the post office or to actually call people or even meet them for lunch. The world may have gone into a box that we hold in our hands but you should find a way to both live outside the box and in it.


– Brian Feinblum, the chief marketing officer for Planned Television Arts, has been promoting and marketing authors since 1989. Pick up the phone and call: 212-583-2718. Email: feinblumb@plannedtvarts.com. Web: http://www.plannedtvarts.com. Brian’s new blog can be found at http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com.

Book Promotion: 31 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page

I'm trying an interesting experiment. I'm promoting an important blog post on my AskJohnKremer.com website on how to promote your Facebook page by blogging about it on four different blogs: my Book Marketing Bestsellers blog (this one right here), my Ask the Booksellers blog, my Ask the Publicist blog, and my The Book Marketing Network blog. I also featured it on the home page of BookMarket.com.

If you want to get more action out of your Facebook pages, be sure to check this out: http://askjohnkremer.com/31-ways-to-promote-your-facebook-page.

Note: You can also use many of these techniques to promote your LinkedIn pages, Twitter profiles, and other social network profiles.

I think this particular blog post is valuable enough to promote more heavily than my usual blog posts. Another recent blog post I consider important is my 101 Ways to Blog as a Book Author. You can read it here: http://blog.bookmarket.com/2011/06/101-ways-to-blog-as-book-author-plus.html.



John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books.

Like The John Kremer: http://www.facebook.com/thejohnkremer

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Like Open Horizons: http://www.facebook.com/OpenHorizonsPublishing

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