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Social media outreach should be part of your author and book marketing campaign. How you manage your social media is entirely up to you and your short and long-term goals. I’m a big fan of scheduling social media posts but if you don’t have a website and lots of content on that website that you can post, there’s no reason to autoschedule anything.
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Video is one of the most popular forms of content online today, especially when it comes to YouTube. Videos are widely watched on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, too. Because they tend to reach more people than traditional posts and even photo posts on social media, videos have become one of the best ways for authors to market yourself and your books. As with any form of marketing, there are pros and cons. You can decide for yourself whether the pros outweigh the cons for you if you want to use video to advance your readership.
PRO: You don’t need a marketing budget, just a webcam or mobile phone.
Years ago, people spent big money on producing videos. While you certainly still can create videos with high production values, it’s not necessary, especially as an author. Actually, many people watching videos online today prefer videos of people just being themselves and talking about things. You don’t even need a script, you can just hit record and talk about a topic related to your books or about writing. Be sure to not spend the whole video trying to sell. Leave that for the very end of the video.
Read more: Pros and Cons of Using Video to Advance Your Readership
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Are you trying to think of ways to jumpstart your book’s visibility so that you increase your sales? If you are, you may be thinking about giving your book away for free either on a temporary basis on a permanent basis. There are lots of reasons authors choose to give their work away, and lots of reasons why authors don’t give their books away. Let’s look at some of the pros and cons.
1. Your Free Readers Will Talk About Your Book
The hope is that by giving your book away for free, you will attract additional readers for the book via word of mouth who will buy it later. We all want this to be true. We want to be able to create a firestorm over our books and attract thousands of readers so that those readers will tell other book lovers so that, all of a sudden, you’re booming.
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As a new author or an author that’s just starting to build momentum around your books, it’s a good idea to have a dedicated author website. However, in the beginning it’s advisable not to spend too much money so that you don’t get yourself into debt over your head while trying to promote and advertise your books. One of the ways you can control your costs is by choosing a free web hosting package at one of the many free hosting providers, like Weebly, Joomla Launch, Wix and Infinity Free. While free accounts are limited, they typically provide enough options for the beginning website.
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Best Social Media Sites for Indie Authors
Promoting products and services, including books, means spreading the word. There are a lot of ways to accomplish this, but the first step should always be social media. Millions of people use social media, but it’s important to optimize your use of social media so that you do not waste your time.
If you’re an author, Twitter is where it’s at. There is a massive #writingcommunity on Twitter, and they are available 24-hours a day to chat and answer your questions. If you are a new author or new to Twitter, your first step should be to use that hashtag, introduce yourself and tell us what you write. If you’re established in the community, it’s equally important to pay attention to that thread so that you can answer questions, provide advice and be on the lookout for book calls. Lots of readers and writers use that community to find new books to read.
Your second favorite hashtag should be #amwriting. This hashtag is used by writers who are working on novels. If you want to shoutout your progress, make a comment on the writing process or provide a writing tip that you think might be useful for other writers, use the #amwriting hashtag. There are also other hashtags you can use, depending on where you are at in the writing process. A few other good ones include #ampublishing, #amquerying and #indieauthor.