Joanne Mallory

Happy rainy Bank Holiday Writerly-Folks.

I thought i’d use this grey, Sunday afternoon to share a few things…

On the 19th of May my book, How to Build an Author Platform, was released to the world, and I had a little Facebook party to wish my words well on their travels, and the feedback from the launch party has been pretty great, so I thought i’d take all the marketing tips and hints from the launch and put them all in once place.

This book is a nuts and bolts approach to getting your ‘author self’ out there, I’ve kept it simple, stress free and super cheap.

Because the thing is, we don’t all have oodles of pounds to throw at marketing. Not to mention the fact that i’ve got a better chance of finding the end of the rainbow than getting a bookbub. But I digress…

So, this blog is all the post’s from the Facebook launch. Here we go…

 

Welcome to the Facebook launch for How to Build an Author Platform, a book for all of us writerly-types who are just trying to reach the Perfect Reader.
Today will be all about tips and tricks — just remember that they don’t all apply to you. As I mention in the book, you only need TWO dedicated social media platforms (that match your audience) for your books and your author self ~ it’s important that we don’t overload ourselves.

Let’s get this boat in the water 🙂

 

 

The book is Available on Amazon, Kobo… well, pretty much everywhere.

 

 

 

 

Let’s spend some time looking at what we can do with all the different social media platforms that are available to us.

And we’ll get the day rolling by talking about Goodreads.

 

…and once you start to get your goodreads audience growing, don’t forget to post you book updates and vlogs/blogs there, as your followers will see your posts in their feed. After all, Goodreads is the Facebook of the reading world…

 

Now i’m a youtube junky, i love to talk about writing, moan about writing and panic about writing over on youtube. (I’ve also made a series of videos that go with this book, you can find them here.). I’ve also created a little Facebook Group where i’ll be sharing any marketing tips, and social media changes, to help you all stay up to date. It would be lovely if you’d like to join. I’m aiming to post once a week ~ so no nasty spamming. 🙂

 

Let the whirlwind tour continue ~ Do you use pinterest? I waste a horrendous amount of time there! ~ but don’t forget to create a pinbaord for your book, make your cover the front image, and put an amazon link in the description box. Include all sorts of images that refer to your story. This is the board for my fiction release earlier in the year, the BOARD has a good number of repins and followers now.

 

When you’re sharing your book’s link to amazon, don’t forget to get a universal short link first ~ you can choose the tail of the url to match your book, and it automatically links back to the amazon store in the readers country. It looks neater and more professional. You can do this at Booklinker.

 

If you think that Facebook and Twitter is already taking over your life, and all this information feels like even more of an overload ~ don’t panic, and don’t think you have to start doing everything.
One of the big things I talk about in Building an Author Platform, is creating a structure that leaves you feeling more in control and with more free time, not less.
Our minds won’t be able to wonder to creative places if we are constantly worried what Instagram wants.
We’re still writers…

 

Okay then, instagram top tip, coming your way ~ don’t hashtag the post, hashtag in the comments box underneath. It’s a lot cleaner, you can put more hashtags in without being annoying, and it get more responses.
I’ve been doing it this way for the last few weeks, and my posts are already getting more l<3 ‘s ~ here’s My Account, in case you were wondering 😉

I talk about hashtags in the book too, how they work and how to use them. It’s important to do a bit of upfront research on which hashtags work best for your genre, theme and the audience you’re trying to attract.
#############################################

 

Now, let’s look at social media etiquette, I discuss this in the book too. (And mailing list etiquette.)
Think of the things that gum up your feed. The things that make you unfollow.
Now look at what you post ~ it can be better to not post at all than to panic post, or panic post with wine… (believe me, I know)
The thing that get’s me is a constant stream of cat pictures with cute sayings, over and over again…
I’m a writer, so I’m noisy (occupational hazard) and if I follow, it’s because I want to see what you’re cooking and where you’re going, and once you decide what personal stuff you’re prepared to share, (keep in your comfort zone,) your audience will definitely be interested.

 

I mentioned mailing lists in the last post, if anyone has any specific questions i’ll try and answer them. But it’s a big topic; I could do a whole launch on that alone. There’s a chapter on just mailing lists in the book; what to put in them, how to manage them, how to get people on them…

But the true fact is; you gotta have a mailing list. It’s a necessary evil.

 

This next post is about The Facebook Launch ~ how to do them, and what to say, and as it’s more involved here’s A Little Blog about it.

So we’re into the last act of this little launch, I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and that you’ve found some useful ideas in amongst it all. If you have any questions or thoughts on further videos you’d like to see, just let me know.

As writers we’re pretty hard on ourselves, we procrastinate and beat off crippling self-doubt, and nobody understands a writer quite like another writer.
And as one crazy writer to another, i’d like to say thank you so much for coming today.

Jx

And don’t forget to come on over to the Building an Author Platform Facebook Group if you’d like more of this kind of crazy 🙂