Marketing 101 for Writers

Get ready to take some notes, people.

If you’re an indie author, and you’re going it alone, writing your book is only 20% of becoming a household name. As Brenda Perlin stated in her blog piece “So, you’ve written a book. What now?,” our job is to go out and find the people interested in our stories.

But, how the hell do you do that? Where do you even begin?

I have had plenty of authors come to me within my career asking me to help them further their book sales. The first question I always ask them is, “What have you done in terms of marketing?”

Cue the blank expression and the shrug effect that follows.

If you don’t have a publishing deal, which includes marketing, then I have news for you: your book should sell itself, but it won’t. You have to spend quality time getting to know your audience. The goal is to become more than just an e-book. You represent that body of work which, in turn, serves as your individual brand.

I have three steps for marketing yourself and your book(s), which will make your lives a bit easier and your pockets that much fuller.

Step One: Social Media

Yes, I know, it’s the dreaded social media. While we may love to hate it it is an incredibly useful marketing tool.

Some marketers will tell you to pay for advertisements or followers. DO NOT DO THIS. I have many years of research behind me, and I know that paying your way to the top doesn’t work in the long term.

Unfortunately for you, unless you already have deep pockets to pay someone like me, you are going to have to work hard in this arena to get noticed. Pay no mind to the amount of followers you have. Quality of your followers is much more practical and beneficial to you. The impression rate (on Twitter) and your reach and engagement (on Facebook) is your gold.

Watch these stats wisely because they will give you much needed insight into what your followers like to see from you.

Social media is very much trial-and-error but, with the nature of the speed at which social media runs, it’s also forgiving. You make an error, no big deal. In less than 20 minutes, on Twitter at least, it’s old news and no one pays attention to old news.

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Visit The Official Prose. Blog for the full article by marketing professional, writer, and social media manager, Sammie Thomas (@sammielee46) later today: blog.theprose.com/blog.