Today I’m going to throw out some marketing ideas I’ve been talking to authors about over the past couple of months. These are the ones that have floated to the top as having gotten excellent results. Try one of them to shake up your marketing plan!
LinkedIn: This is one that even I was skeptical about because I’m not on LinkedIn that much, but it really worked. Earlier this year I took a course on LinkedIn (just to brush up) and noticed that they’ve added a “publications” section to profiles. This is something you should definitely go over and fill out, especially if you write non-fiction. I mentioned this to a friend of mine, she put her brand-new eBook into the publications section, and she ended up getting a multi-thousand dollar consulting gig out of it. Pretty great, especially for the five minutes it took to fill that space out. You also will definitely want to syndicate whatever social media you’re doing through LinkedIn’s now-enhanced feed. You can do that through HootSuite or manually. LinkedIn Groups are also a totally underutilized tool for non-fiction authors, in my opinion. Open up your LinkedIn profile today and make some updates!
Your List: We’ve discussed the absolute vital need for you to have a mailing list ad infinitum, but it occurred to me over the weekend that many of you are probably not emailing your lists regularly because a) you don’t know what to say to them/ don’t want to bother them, b) don’t feel like you have enough material for a “newsletter,” or c) have never emailed them so you just feel awkward about the whole thing. I feel your pain, but this is something that is so essential to your success as an author, I would urge you to make an effort to get over that hurdle sooner rather than later. If it helps, stop using the word “newsletter.” Most “newsletters” are too long anyway, and we never end up reading all the content. Try penning a short letter to your list, just about what you’re working on, something that might be helpful to them, or an interesting factoid you learned recently (like about deep fried turkeys, for instance). Those people signed up for your list because they want to hear from you. They know not everything you have to say is Hemingway-like. Just talk to them!
Find a Social Media Site That Fits You: Authors feel like if they’re not into GoodReads, Facebook, or Twitter, they’re never going to get anywhere. So not true! If you try Pinterest and discover that you TOTALLY LOVE IT, then use Pinterest to market your books. The key is to find you something you can live with every day that lets you be your best self, and if you haven’t found that yet, don’t give up! This year saw the introduction of super-short videos (shown on Vine and Instagram), but check Namchk.com for a list of over 150 of them. Keep browsing until you find something you like!
