Social media allows authors to talk with their readers, pick their readers’ minds, and empathize with them. Authors wish that there was a single website where they could handle all interactions with their readers, but this still remains a pipe dream. To maximize the benefits that social media has to offer, an author should use a combination of several sites. We shall look at the best combination of sites for an author.

Goodreads is one of the best websites for authors and it has over 20 million members. If there was an ultimate site for authors, then Goodreads would be it. Another website for authors is Google+ which gives authors endless flexibility in displaying their books. Posts to Google+ are quickly and automatically indexed, making them easier to find using Google Search. Twitter is a great place to build an audience of followers and engage them in conversations. Non-fiction writers might benefit more from LinkedIn. Facebook is the ultimate social website, but others beat it to the punch in matters specific to authors. Pinterest is a good place to show people the visual aspects of your book such as scenes in the book, pictures of locations where your story unfolds, and any other images. Here we shall look at the four sites that make the best combination for authors: Goodreads, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Goodreads

It is a website that every writer has to know and use. It has more than 20 million readers making up thousands of groups that cover virtually all categories and genres. This website has space for your blog, quotes, author page, book trailer, and extra pages for your book. You can post book launches on this page and give away free copies to boost the exposure of your book. With one click you can add all your connections from Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

Google+

On this website, you can show your book cover more brilliantly than you would on other sites and you can do it as many times as you want. Apart from that, you can use #hashtags, link to your blogs, meet readers with Google Hangouts™, enjoy better search engine rankings, and write resource-type articles. Google+ is a great place to meet people with whom you share similar interests.

Twitter

You can follow many people from your field and get followed by people interested in your works. In this website you can provide followers with valuable information such as helpful tips and news or simply crack them up with funny posts. Avoid using it as a cheap way to advertise. You can make your presence felt by creating many tweets and re-tweeting as much as you can. Twitter used to be centered on text only but now you can also add photos and videos. Posts with photos and videos get 150% more re-tweets and 89% more favorites.

Pinterest

This is still the social media site with the highest growth rate. It gets 41% of all e-commerce traffic compared to Facebook’s 37%. It is a great website to use for social discovery of your books. You can post photos about interesting scenes in your book and other visual teasers to arouse people’s interest in your book.