The Tales Pensieve

Your book is almost ready to be published. Almost.

It is out of your hands and with the editors. Once edited and cover of the book okayed, it will go for print. So can you start celebrating? I would say no. You can relax, of course. But to celebrate, you need to have sales. And for sales to happen, people need to know about your book, right? They need to know about you too. Now is the time to concentrate on promoting your book.

As I keep stressing, social media is the best medium of advertising right now. And of all the mediums we are now on, one can safely say that there are more people on facebook than on other mediums. From new born kids to grandparents, everyone has a facebook account. Identify your target readers and promote your book to them. I have a few tips to promote your book on Facebook.

Start A Facebook Page

A lot of you might shy away from doing this, but trust me, having a facebook page is not necessarily narcissistic. It means that you have something to show or sell and people can gather information & stay updated about your work from here. Name the page on yourself and not on your book. Because, when book 2 comes, the page name will become redundant. Moreover, we want people to know you, as a brand. You can start with inviting your friends to like the page and requesting your good friends to share the link further with their friends.

Write the introduction well – make sure it is crisp and smart. And of course, error free. You are an author. Your language needs to be error free.

If you think you cannot devote enough time to maintain the page regularly, rope in your friends to help you or hire a professional. I suggest the latter because they know what needs to be done. Facebook also has the amazing facility of paid promotions where you can promote your page (and in turn the book) however; spending on promotions is your decision. It doesn’t cost a bomb, I must add.

Write. And share on Facebook.

Yes, you need to write more, apart from the book you have written. See, this is how it works. If I have read you, probably on your blog, and I like how you write, I will automatically want to read more of you. Plus, through blogs, we can network better. Share your blog posts on your facebook timeline, on your page and in blogger/author groups. Read other people’s blogs; leave comments. Few of them will head over to your blog and read it. And thus will form a relationship. Self-promotion and mutual promotion goes a long way for debut and new authors (well, actually even for seasoned authors, to be honest).

Network through Facebook Groups

This is really important. Facebook has this brilliant thing called groups. Find groups where bloggers interact with each other. There are also groups where writers interact with one another. Join
the active ones and make sure you participate. Share your own writing on these groups and ask for feedbacks. Not only will the feedbacks better your work and give you fresh perspectives, but your work will be known to more people too. It is really a win-win situation.

Engage

When you are sharing posts on your page, do them in an engaging manner. Have discussions; invite fans to give their views. Get into a one-on-one author-reader relationship; let them know the person behind the book cover. Keep them updated about the progress with your book, share snippets from the chapters and discuss with them.

Try these and let me know how things go for you. Ping me if you need professional help!

Disclaimer: The above tips are for new or debut authors and these are just suggestions. Implementing them would not guarantee sky high sales, but if well-implemented, they will surely help the author as well as the book gets a lot of visibility.