Before you start your social media adventure you need to know four things. These things need to be written down so you can examine them as you create your campaign or plan.
Know your audience-
Identify a typical reader of your book and do a mock profile of them so you don’t lose sight of who you are trying to reach.
Remember that your audience, as it pertains to social media, doesn’t just want your book, they want an experience with you.
People are about their OWN stories!!!!
Know your goals-
Have set goals. Goals for how you will budget your time online. Goals for what you want to get out of being on social sites. Goals for your book, series or career. But have them, know them and work toward them daily.
If you don’t have goals going in, you can easily get swept away by the time suck that often occurs with social media.
If you don’t know how much time to spend there I recommend buying an egg timer, setting it for 20 minutes and timing yourself. You might budget more than that, or less, but be consistent and don’t get sucked in.
Know yourself-
Know your strengths and weaknesses. Match them up to the social sites to make sure you choose the right one for you.
If you are terrible about blogging, don’t blog. Twitter. Do something you feel you can be good at. And if you can, find something you actually enjoy doing.
Be passionate about things. People love to see others who are passionate about what they do. Be
positive. Snark can come back on you in a bad way if you’re not careful.
Know your resources-
Who is your go-to person for technology? Website stuff? Social media? Make friends. Exchange resources with people.
Know professionals who can help you, booksellers, librarians and communities. And that is where we’re going to segue into the actual topic of the session.
There are many blogs and sites that are specific for the thriller genre. Some of those are professional sites that charge a fee for services and some are free. Both have something to offer the thriller writer looking to promote their book.
Start with asking yourself what it is you want to promote? Is it your book, series or brand? What is your goal? Are you looking to cross promote to a sub-genre like romance or paranormal?
Set your goals and match them to your opportunities.
If you’re looking for sites that will get your book in front of thriller readers and other potential buyers such as booksellers or libraries you may need to look for a professional service. So we’ll look at those first and then move on to the free sites.
There are three businesses that I’m going to cover in this session. They are not the only game in town, but they are businesses I trust. Anytime you plan on hiring someone to do your marketing for you I strongly urge you to check their references and reputation.
BookReporter.com
Carol Fitzgerald owns the Book Reporter and this businesses has the respect of the industry. It has been around for years and the great thing about it is that it has genre-specific opportunities.
What I love about this site is it promotes itself to readers. It gives readers a reason to trust them and a reason to return. That means a lot of eyes on your promotion.
AuthorBuzz
M.J. Rose. If you don’t know her, you need to at least know of her. She is an amazing promoter and has put together one of the best promotions for books and authors there is online. You can have your book seen by librarians, book clubs and readers. You can do blog ads. This is a site I recommend you check out.
Circle of Seven Productions
If you’re going to do multimedia and social media check out www.cosproductions.com. This is the company that started the book trailer phenomenon and whether you like book trailers or not, the videos are seen by hundreds of booksellers and thousands of librarians as well as on social media sites, reader sites and genre-specific sites.
They have social media marketing package that includes book review, both traditional and video, blogging, press release, podcasts and distribution of the video and podcast to a wide variety of appropriate sites.
Barbara recommended Dan Blank of www.wegrowmedia.com as someone who does reliable marketing that has experience. She has worked with him personally.
Again, there are other professional services out there. You may want to check the Predators and Editors website to see if they have been reported with either good or bad reviews.
Now, for some free sites-
- ITW Facebook
- ITW MySpace
- TracyReaderDad Blog - Blip player
- InfernalDreams.net
- Reader’s Entertainment Thriller site
- ITW Twitter (social oomph)
- Thriller/Mystery/Suspense Group - http://groups.myspace.com/
index.cfm?fuseaction=groups. groupprofile&groupID=103678455 - Whodunit Mystery/Suspense Group - http://groups.myspace.com/
index.cfm?fuseaction=groups. groupprofile&groupID=100437006 - Mysteries and Thrillers MySpace Group - http://groups.myspace.com/
index.cfm?fuseaction=groups. groupprofile&groupID=103678455 - Facebook ITW Debut authors site (NEW, first time authors only) - http://www.facebook.com/#!/
group.php?gid=31198744908&ref= search - Facebook group- "We love reading thriller & science fiction" - http://www.facebook.com/
search/?init=srp&sfxp&q= suspense+books&o=69&c1=5&s=40# !/group.php?gid=140489859244 - http://suspenseandcrime.
gather.com/ - PW Beyond Her Book
Be a guest blogger! Talk about something useful or unique and don’t forget to promote your book and website!
- Know your audience
- Know your goals
- Know yourself
- Know your resources
No comments:
Post a Comment