In this episode we are going to talk about the right way to use Facebook to sell more books!
Last week we talked about why Facebook is overrated for book marketing, but we didn’t say it’s completely useless, so today we’re going to talk about the ways Facebook CAN work for you to promote your books.
Quick Recap Why Facebook is Overrated:
- you don’t want to become a digital peasant farmer
- it reaches people in the wrong state of mind
- Facebook hides your content from 96% of fans.
- you could be doing something more valuable with your time
- you are competing with multimillion dollar shadow organizations that will outspend and out optimize you.
Questions:
- I’m an introvert. I’d rather [kill myself] than give talks in public. Or make the effort to talk to people to arrange talks in public.
- Doesn’t a podcast take time?…
- How do you drive people to your blog if you don’t notify them on Facebook or Twitter that there’s a new post up?
- Thomas post, 19 Ways
- I am writing more books. But you don’t get the organic visibility on Amazon (or elsewhere) that you got 5 or more years ago. How do people know you have a new book unless you advertise?
- Overrated does not mean useless.
Ten Ways Authors Can Use Facebook to Promote Their Books
- Don’t use Facebook to promote your books. Let us explain:
- Facebook is a party, have that mentality when you post or interact.
- As An Advertising Platform. Some indie authors have seen success buying Facebook ads. Most don’t but some do. That said, it never makes sense for a traditionally published author to pay for ads. The margins don’t work.
- Market Testing. Facebook ads are a great place to test book covers, titles, and marketing copy. Not sure which book cover is best? Buy ads for both covers and see which one gets more clicks.
- Organizing a Launch Team. Facebook groups can still be a good place to organize a launch team, especially if your audience is older.
- Facebook Live. This doesn’t work as well as it used to and may not work next year, but you can still get decent results from Facebook live, especially if you are targeting an older audience. If your audience is younger, you may want to go with YouTube live instead.
- Create a private group for your hard core readers. This is what we have for our hard core fans.
- Join groups that fit your genre and get active
- Make sure you’ve set up alerts when someone mentions you or your novel(s) and go in and interact. (It’s a party, yes?) Share trivia or photos, or behind the scenes info. In this way you’re contributing to a conversation that’s already going on.
- (Every now and then …) ask readers to follow your blog, or join your newsletter. You can explain to them (carefully) what’s going on with Facebook.
- Announce book launches. It won’t do much, but it will do something
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