Author Marketing in a Web 2.0 World - Part 2
by Don Lafferty
(Cont. from 11/24/09):
6. Know your local booksellers.
Buy the Books. More importantly, make sure they know you and your book. When your book hits the shelves, a passionate bookseller can be your best advocate. Create an Indiebound affiliate account and put that link to your book on all your Internet outposts.
When you do a “drive-by book signing” tell everybody in your online community where they can find signed books. Follow up with the bookseller to make sure your signed books are moving.
Blog about them. Thank them on Twitter. Put their pictures up on your Facebook page. Remind everybody you meet every day in every way you can to support their local bookstores, and if you absolutely, positively must use an Amazon link, list it last.
Most publishers require authors to provide links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, 
Powell’s and Books A Million, but they don’t have the bandwidth or the authority to police the manner in which you display the links. I like to use the graphic [on the right] here, linked out accordingly.
[Editor's note: Another good link for eBooks would be, in our humble opinion, the one on the left.]
7. Get active in your local writing community.
Writing may be a solitary pursuit, but marketing works better with an army. Push your social beyond your comfort zone. Enlist the help of your local writing community by offering whatever support you can. Pay it forward. It works.
Go to www.meetup.com and you’ll find lots of local writers getting together for lots of different reasons; critique groups, genre-specific discussion groups and general discussion groups. If you don’t find one in your neighborhood, start one.
When you meet other writers, be sure to connect with them on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Engage them publicly on Twitter using the @ reply. Re-tweet their tweets. I know it sounds ridiculous but you’re playing a numbers game and you need more followers to sell more stuff. Engaging publicly in a non-selfish way raises your trust quotient in a social context.
My buddy, Chris Brogan recommends messaging 12 times about other people’s stuff for every 1 message about your own stuff to build your trust.
8. Use free tools to automate your social media work process.
Google Reader, Google Alerts, RSS Feeds and a Twitter application like TweetDeck can be combined to create an automated “listening post” that’ll help you minimize the time suck of social media engagement, and maximize the effectiveness of your social media marketing strategy.
9. Brainstorm your key words and find them.
There are millions of conversations being had out there in social networks every day. Yes, conversations. Status updates, comments on status updates, blog posts, comments on blog posts, comments on the comments, tweets, re-tweets, and more re-tweets.
You can use free search tools to identify your target connections by defining the key words and key word combinations being used by your target connections in the social space, and RSS Feeds to deliver the search results to your Google Reader.
Use your list to create “comprehensive”, “once daily” Google Alerts, and direct them via RSS to your Google Reader.
Go to www.search.twitter.com and search each term and combination in your key word list. Create RSS feeds for these searches and direct them to your Google Reader or load the searches into a Twitter management application like TweetDeck, Seesmic or Hootsuite.
10. Be social! (I’m yelling here)
You can be a recluse, you can be a curmudgeon or you can be an asshole, but those romanticized, stereotypical author personalities won’t succeed in a Web 2.0 environment.
When someone takes the time to leave a comment on your blog, send you a message, or comment on your Facebook wall, pay attention! Respond! Thank them for their time! Answer questions! Make suggestions that add value to your relationship. Give them a reason to come back.
Engage and build brand loyalty.
Never before has it been easier for an author to connect with their public than it is today. All things being equal, the author who engages in Web 2.0 will crush the author who ignores this social space.
Times aren’t changing, they’ve already changed.
What are your best Web 2.0 practices for building platform and connecting with your readers? I’d love to hear them.
| Don Lafferty is a writer, lecturer and social media marketing consultant, and leads from the front lines of the Social Media space, defining effective strategies and tactics for clients, enabling them to capitalize on this exploding opportunity to connect with their customers like never before.
He’s the Social Media Director of the Web’s wackiest canine comedy series, It’s Todd’s Show, the social media director of the online literary magazine, Wild River Review, and a member of the Philly Liar’s Club. |
Tags: author marketing, self marketing, social media, web 2.0
January 31st, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Twitter drives MOST traffic to my sites
February 1st, 2010 at 7:55 am
@ Kenneth: Do your Twitter visitors “convert” to a sale, or are most “lookey-loos”?