Social media is a great place for authors to meet their readers. However, some experienced authors feel that it can also be a waste of time, especially if an author wants to promote his/her book. If you are an author and want your book to become popular, you have to make sure that the book is fantastic. Sell that book using the usual channels and write another great book. Eventually your older books will get enough publicity when your new ones succeed and you will not have to waste a lot of time tweeting.
With social media, there is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. Every author should have a unique approach to social media for it to be of any help with their book. Authors should spend quite a lot more time writing than they do promoting their books on social media. After all, there is no point trying to promote books when you are too busy to write them in the first place.
Facebook is an exception to this rule because of several reasons. Unlike many other social networks, you can actually expect to sell books on Facebook. Although you won’t sell books in massive quantities, you can bet on a quantifiable return on investment. Sure, you should not consider quitting your day job yet if you only sell books on Facebook. The sales you make are usually not commercially viable. However, at least you get to sell some books. With other social networks, you will get many people talking about your books and you will create big groups of followers. However, you will be disappointed to learn that your efforts will yield little returns in the form of book sales.
One of the reasons why you can sell more books on Facebook is because you personally get to know your followers and eventually they will become your friends. These followers-turned-friends are among the most loyal readers you can get for your books. They will often read all your current books as well as older ones, which is a great thing for your bank account. Not only will your followers buy your books, they will also passionately recommend your books to their friends.
The best thing about your followers marketing your book for you is that they don’t just tell anybody about the book, they only tell selected people. This means that they give you free targeted marketing which means that you enjoy better conversion rates from people you have never known before. Sites such as Twitter and Goodreads are great because you will have many conversations with your audience. However, turning your followers into buyers of your book is a different story.
It takes quite a long time to build a good following on Facebook. However, once you have a group of people who are interested in your book, you can consider them to be among your most useful marketing tools. This is because they will recommend your book to their friends who trust them. These recommendations are more likely to make friends of your followers buy your book. However, it is harder to convince people to buy a book if you are the author. That is why Facebook trumps Twitter, Goodreads, and other social media sites in terms of return on investment.
