By Elaine L. Orr
For authors, there's no substitute for meeting readers, librarians, and bookstore owners face-to-face. Aside from promoting your work, it's a chance to talk books.
If you want to sell books beyond those you can reach in person, you need to advertise. Some ads can be subject-based, even if you write fiction. For example, I've just scheduled some ads about my family history mysteries in publications of the National Genealogy Society.
Even if you have a traditional publisher, it's up to you to constantly let people know about your books. After all, people can read them for decades, and a publisher can't be expected to promote them that long.
You may hear that all advertising needs to be targeted, but I believe broad -- some would say indiscriminate -- advertising is important. You want to reach people who may not know they would like to read what you write. But you can't spend a lot of money doing that.
I maintain that twenty minutes a day on social media can make a big difference in sales.
The Most Efficient Way to Organize to Advertise
To spend less time later, you need to assemble short message pieces for each book (or whatever you promote). For each of my thirty-five books, I have several 280-character blurbs that can be alternated on X, where my handle is @elaineorr55. These short blurbs are organized by each of my four mystery series, then by book.
In case you're counting, that's a lot of draft tweets (okay, posts), and each one contains at least two hashtags. Hashtags are words or very short phrases that begin with the pound sign (#). They help your blurb reach people who have a specific interest.
Why 280 characters? That's the maximum characters for a post on X without paying for their premium membership. Each tweet/post needs to have a link to the item you want viewers to buy. In theory, links don't count toward the 280, but at least some of the characters do, meaning your blurb should probably be less than 280 characters.
Sites such as Instagram and Facebook permit longer postings, so you can add to the basic short blurb.
Using Graphics Effectively
Pictures draw the eye, so every post needs some kind of graphic. If you don't use any kind of design software (such as Publisher, Photoshop Elements, or Canva), your initial posts can include simply the book cover or something related to the book.
Some images cost money to download, but you can find free ones. Generally, vectors (which look like cartoons) are more likely to be free. Take photos yourself -- the ultimate free digital content. I buy 100 images at a time from Deposit Photos and it takes years to use them all. They don't expire.
Whatever you do, don't just grab images from the web -- they could be copyrighted.
My graphics are also organized by book, in separate folders on my computer. You don't want to have to hunt for images you've used. The exceptions are folders by holiday. You may simply want to post a Happy Thanksgiving message with a turkey image, or some of your books may have a holiday theme.
Where to Place Your Free Ads
Make no mistake, posts on social media sites are ads. I use Twitter (X) every day for about 10 minutes -- more if I have a new book or am having a sale. It's a quick way to use hashtags to target readers and reaches readers around the world.
Here's my best tip. Tweets can be scheduled in advance. When I post one, I immediately put that same blurb in a new tweet and schedule it for one or two other days. Scheduling is also great if you're going on vacation or know you'll be busy for a given day or week.
Post (or schedule posts) at different times of day. If you post at dinnertime where you live, it will be the middle of the night somewhere else. I sell books all over the world, and it's largely due to Twitter. I use hashtags such as #KindleUK or #KoboCanada.
Instagram is easy to use and is very image-based. You load the image before you write any text. Because you aren't limited in length you can use more humor or post on a range of topics besides what you're selling.
When you load a photo to Instagram, it may show only part of it. Look at the bottom left of the photo and there is a small box that lets you pick the ratio of photo to the space it's in. (That may not be the correct terminology -- just try it until the photo looks ok.)
It's easy to see comments on Instagram, and I end up writing short notes to friends or other authors.
TikTok is video-based, and since I don't know much about videos, I delayed using it. Videos can be just a few seconds. In fact, if they're longer they may be hard to manipulate. TikTok is easier to use from a phone. Take the video and load it from that device to TikTok. If you have difficulty, find a high school kid to help.
Facebook is an older app, but is especially useful if your target audience is older than 25. It's important to have a Facebook page for your work and a personal one. You may not want readers or other clients to see photos of your family and friends. You also don't want to alienate readers through opinions you may post on your personal page -- politics and product promotion rarely mix.
The key to effective Facebook exposure is to join a couple of groups related to your interests or products. I belong to several that deal with cozy mysteries, since that's what I write. Don't just post and move on. Interact with some of the others in that Facebook group.
Use hashtags in most of your posts on all the sites so you aren't reaching only people you may already know.
Every site lets you create a profile with an photo of yourself or some other image you like. Do that. If someone likes a post they may want to know more about you.
Building Slowly
If this sounds like too much work, think of it as an investment of time to build your marketing inventory. Once you save posts to a word processing document, you're cutting and pasting more than creating new posts.
Pick a site you're comfortable with and do just that for a few weeks or so. If you like photos, Instagram may be your thing. If you want to use short videos, that's TikTok.
I suggest you use Twitter a lot. It's easy and quick. Don't pay attention to all the negative political posts or character assassinations. There's a tab called profile, and when you click that you see only your posts.
Final Thoughts
Over time, you'll build up followers at each site. You do this by following others and creating interesting posts that encourage people to follow you. Through use of hashtags, you can reach a lot of people before you have a lot of followers.
Like and repost the posts of others. When you repost theirs, they will repost yours.
Make sure you do some posts that go beyond "buy my book." I love flowers, so I post them on Instagram a lot. I also post vacation pictures and photos of my cat. Never neglect the weather. Deep snow or storm clouds can be eye-catching. Have a hobby? Post those photos -- have some fun.
Be consistent. If you're only going to post once a month, should you bother? Maybe not. On the other hand, perhaps you only want to post when you have a new book or other produce. Personally, I don't think periodic posting will help with sales.
Finally, don't get drawn into reading lots of others' posts or surfing social media sites. And keep meeting real people! They're more fun.
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